2 BC BOOKWORLD SUMMER 2013 3 BC BOOKWORLD SUMMER 2013 the Traditional Publishing Industry Is Broken Because the Gates Are Closed to Talented New Authors

Home , Billie Livingston, Bill Gaston, Jules Verne Award, Lamya Essemlali

2 BC BOOKWORLD SUMMER 2013 3 BC BOOKWORLD SUMMER 2013 The traditional publishing industry is broken Because the gates are closed to talented new authors

Self-publishing never had a chance Because there is no quality control

There has to be another way VIRTUES OF WAR Which isn’t all about the money 978-0-986672-20-0 WINNER – CYGNUS AWARD MILITARY SCIENCE FICTION

Promontory Press is a new kind of publisher which offers the high quality, full distribution and sales support of traditional publishing, blended with the flexibility and author control of self-publishing. Created by authors for authors, Promontory recognizes that publishing is a business, but never forgets that writing is an art. STILLPOINT 978-1-927559-01-7 FINALIST – INDIE BOOK AWARD If you have a great book and GENERAL FICTION want a great shot at the market,

4 BC BOOKWORLD SUMMER 2013 BCTOP* SELLERS PEOPLE

Standing Up with Ga'axsta'las: Jane Constance Cook & the Politics of Memory, Church, & Custom (UBC Press $39.95) by Leslie A. Robertson with the Kwagu'l Gixsam Clan

Raven Brings the Light (Harbour $19.95) by Roy Henry Vickers & Robert Budd

Indian Horse (D&M $21.95) by Richard Wagamese

Little You (Orca Books $9.95) by Richard Van Camp & Julie Flett

Allen Carr’s Easy Way to Stop Smoking (Sandhill Book Marketing $19.95) by Allen Carr

Shoot! (New Star Books $19) by George Bowering

He Moved a Mountain: The Life of Frank Calder and the Nisga’a Land Going overboard Claims Accord (Ronsdale Press $21.95) by Joan Harper “One of the things I have learned over the years is that in order to do what we do, we have to be immune to criticism.” – Paul Watson

In 2012, Paul Watson became only the second person to receive France’s Jules Verne Award; the first was Jacques Cousteau. Here he appears in Paris in 2011 with Lamya Essemlali, his co-author for Interview with a Pirate: Captain Paul Watson (Firefly 24.95).

N THE LATE 1970S, AS GREENPEACE WAS STARTING TO GO CORPO- with Brigitte Bardot, Farley Mowat and Pierce Brosnan.

David Korinetz rate and local control was ceded to American and European offices, Watson’s adventures trying to disrupt business on the high seas in order Paul Watson, the breakaway rebel, used to come into the Geor- to protect other species from driftnet fishing have been chronicled by David Sorceress gia Straight newspaper office in Vancouver and oversee paste-up in Earth Warrior: Overboard with Paul Watson and the Sea (Red Tuque Books $16.95) B. Morris by David Korinetz of publicity materials for his own Sea Shepherd Society anti-seal Shepherd Conservation Society (Fulcrum 1995). huntingI and anti-whaling initiatives. The Straight was barely surviving by A feature-length movie is forever in the works. Meanwhile Vancouver- Sensational Victoria: Bright publishing a porn mag called the Vancouver Star using filched material from based filmmaker Trish Dolman directed a compelling, warts ‘n’ all docu- Lights, Red Lights, Murders, U.S. publications. Its layout tables would be festooned with slaughtered mentary, Eco-Pirate: The Story of Paul Watson in 2011, revealing the Ghosts & Gardens (Anvil $24) by Eve Lazarus whales and images of nakedness almost as disturbing... egocentricity required to be a leader during forty years of sustained activism. That was so long ago. Harpooning Greenpeace throughout, Watson reiterates his Sea Shepherd Hollyhock: Garden To Time magazine has since included Watson in its list of the 20th century’s Conservation Society mandate “to end the destruction of habitat and slaugh- (New Society Publishers Table twenty greatest ecologists. $24.95) by Moreka Jolar & ter of wildlife in the world’s oceans” in his latest book, Interview with a Heidi Scheifley Nowadays Amchitka is a strange word, Phyllis Cormack is a forgotten Pirate: Captain Paul Watson (Firefly $24.95), co-authored with Lamya fishboat and the rabble-rousing risk-taker Paul Watson has been called, by Essemlali, president of Sea Shepherd Conservation Society France. Martin Sheen — the actor who has appeared as America’s former TV In it, Watson repeats his contested claim that he was the youngest co- president in West Wing and the commander in Apocalypse Now — “by far the founder of Greenpeace, at age eighteen. most knowledgeable, dedicated and courageous environmentalist alive today.” For any detractors who disapprove of his confrontational tactics to stop Watson has also been highly praised and funded by environmentalist the Japanese whaling fleet, he has the perfect comeback: “Find us a whale Farley Mowat with whom he shares an innate, child-honed reverence for who disapproves of our actions and we promise to give it up.” Bennett other species. ✍ R. Coles It all started for Watson at age eleven in New Brunswick when he discov- RADICALISM STILL LIVES IN B.C., IF ONLY ON PAPER. Virtues of War ered a beaver that he had befriended had been slain by trappers. Infuriated As a descendant of Scottish coal miners who came (Promontory Press $21.99) and heartsick, the boy set about finding and destroying the traps. to Vancouver Island in the late 1800s, by Bennett R. Coles Stephen He remains on the same path as a man, grudgingly admired by many of Collis first wrote Mine (New Star, 2001), a recon- The Canadian Pacific’s his Greenpeace peers, despite his criticisms of their organization. struction of the early history of the B.C. coal indus- Esquimalt & Nanaimo “Greenpeace lost touch with its roots a long time ago,” he once said. “It’s try from which sprang trade unionism in B.C. Railway: The CPR Steam lost its passion. It’s a corporation, a multinational corporation... It was followed by his investigation into the Years, 1905–1949 Stephen Collis (Sono Nis $39.95) “Other groups are doing a hell of a lot more than Greenpeace on a fraction connection between anarchy and poetry, Anarchive by Robert D. Turner & of the budget, and they don’t litter the U.S. with 48 million pieces of direct (New Star, 2005), partially inspired by the Spanish Civil War, a conflict so Donald F. MacLachlan mail per year. I think it’s hypocritical for an environmental organization to essential to the evolution of counter-culturalists such as George Orwell litter the world with so much junk. The problem is, Greenpeace is a feel-good and . They Called Me George Woodcock Number One: Secrets organization. People join to feel good. It’s a waste of millions of dollars...” Now Collis has released To the Barricades (Talon $16.95) to examine and Survival at an A veteran of the confrontation at Wounded Knee and an active supporter shifting strategies of revolt and protest in contemporary social justice cam- Indian Residential of indigenous people’s protests, Paul Watson was nominated as a Green paigns such as the Occupy movement and Idle No More. It is described as (Talonbooks $19.95) School Party candidate for mayor of Vancouver in 1996. by Bev Sellars a collection of explorations “to drive apathy from the field and recover In the new century Watson has taken tourists to the Galapagos Islands forgotten radical ideas.” Birds of BC: A Photo- when he’s not engaged in environmental campaigns. Along the way he has Collis simultaneously examines historical authenticity and authority in graphic Journey managed to get several books into the world. The Red Album (Book Thug $24). This fictional story, in the tradition of (Heritage Group $35.95) Watson first co-authored Cry Wolf! with Greenpeace co-founder by Glenn Bartley Robert Borges and Nabokov, is complicated by a growing maze of author/charac- Hunter in 1985, then a memoir entitled Seal Wars: Twenty-Five Years on ters, “as the ghosts of social revolutions of the past are lifted from the soil * The current topselling titles the Front Lines (2000). It begins in 1995 when Watson was holed up in the in Catalonia, and a new revolution unfolds in South America.” from major BC publishing companies, in no particular order. Magdalen Islands with Martin Sheen. He recalls his forays on the ice floes Pirate 978-1-77085-173-3; Album 9781927040652; Barricades 978-0-88922-747-7

Publication Mail Agreement #40010086 COMING SOON Publisher/ Writer: Advertising & editorial: Contributors: John Moore, Joan Givner, Sage Birchwater, Shane McCune All BC BookWorld reviews Return undeliverable Canadian addresses to: BC BookWorld, 3516 W. 13th Ave., Mark Forsythe, Louise Donnelly, Cherie Thiessen, Writing not otherwise are posted online at Alan Twigg BC BookWorld, 3516 W. 13th Ave., Vancouver, BC V6R 2S3 Vancouver, B.C., V6R 2S3. credited is by staff. Design: Get-to-the-Point Graphics www.abcbookworld.com • Tel/Fax: 604-736-4011 Consultants: Christine Rondeau, Monique Sherrett, Sharon Jackson Produced with the sponsorship of Email: [email protected]. Photographers: Barry Peterson, Laura Sawchuk In-Kind Supporters: Editor/Production: Pacific BookWorld News Society. Publications Mail Proofreaders: Wendy Atkinson, Tara Twigg Simon Fraser University Library; BC David Lester Registration No. 7800. BC BookWorld ISSN: 1701-5405 Annual subscription: $25 Deliveries: Ken Reid, The News Group Vancouver Public Library. BOOKLOOK For this issue, we gratefully acknowledge the SUMMER 2013 unobtrusive assistance of Canada Council, a A DAILY NEWS SERVICE Vol. 27, No. 2 continuous partner since 1988.

5 BC BOOKWORLD SUMMER 2013 is for Abdou is for Grace

AS AN INITIATIVE TO RAISE FUNDS FOR PEN MALCOLM LOWRY AUTHORITY AND Canada, the organization that helps impris- Canadian Theatre expert Sherrill Grace oned and oppressed writers around the has produced her twentieth book, Bearing world, twelve CanLit authors have shed their Witness: Perspectives on War and Peace clothes for a nearly nude calendar, including from the Arts and Humanities (McGill- Life of Pi author Yann Martel. The two Queens 2012), co-edited with Patrick authors from B.C. are Angie Abdou, Imbert, and Tiffany Johnstone. Miss January, and Yasuko Thanh, Miss 978-0773540590 July. Visit www.bareitforbooks.ca to buy the calendar. is for Herath

CO-FOUNDER OF A NON-VIOLENT, CENTRIST, is for Bachinsky democratic political party in his native Sri Lanka called the Podujana Party (meaning PREVIOUSLY A NOMINEE FOR THE BRONWEN Peoples’ Party), R.B. Herath, with a Wallace Award for Poetry, the Pat Lowther Ph.D. in organizational behavior, is the au- Award and a Governor General's Award, thor of Real Power to the People: A Novel Elizabeth Bachinsky is now editor Approach to Electoral Reform in British of Event Magazine at Douglas College in Columbia (University Press of America, New Westminster. Her fifth poetry collec- 2007). His other books include A New Be- tion is The Hottest Summer in Recorded ginning for Humankind: A Recipe for History (Nightwood $18.95). 978-0-88971-276-8 Lasting Peace on Earth (iUniverse $22 / $33) in which he examines major violent conflicts in the world and offers a path to is for Coghlan avoid the errors of the past. 978-1-4759-3952 (SC); 978-1-4759-3953-8 (HC)

NICK AND JENNY COGHLAN FIRST SAILED their diminutive Albin Vega 27, Tarka the is for Immigrant Otter, around the world. It took them four years to sail from Maple Bay, B.C. and back, INCLUDING A BRIEF FRIENDSHIP WITH STEVE via the Cape of Good Hope and Panama. McQueen in Hollywood (when the au- While living in South Africa, they bought thor was hawking a Porsche) and a VIP meet- Bosun Bird, and began a slow voyage home ing with Baryshnikov (when the author to British Columbia through the south At- was working as a carpenter), Dermot lantic. Weathering stormy seas around Cape McCann’s ‘True Tales of an Irish Immi- Horn and New Zealand, they sailed their grant’ in McCann’s Shorts (self-published sturdy, 27-foot cutter across the South At- $20) recalls a varied and colourful life in the lantic to the spectacular glaciers of Tierra tradition of humour-soaked Irish storytell- del Fuego (Fireland) in Patagonia. Nick ing. Born in Belfast in 1950, McCann now Coghlan recalls their adventures in Win- lives aboard his 41-foot sailboat in Victo- ter in Fireland (University of Alberta ria’s Inner Harbour. www.dermotmccann.com Press $34.95). 978-0-88864-547-0 Angie Abdou, 978-0-9917845-0-9 Miss January raising funds for PEN International. WHO ’S Marita Dachsel BRITISHCOLUMBIA Bill Jones is for Dachsel PHOTOGRAPHY THE THIRTY-FOUR POLYGAMOUS WIVES OF 6:8

is for Jones OF Joseph Smith, founder of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, pro- A FRENCH TRAINED CHEF BASED ON WILKIE - vide the fictitious, poetic monologues for Deerholme Farm in the Cowichan Valley, KEVAN

Marita Dachsel’s Glossolalia (Anvil BY Bill Jones has written for the New York

$18), an exploration of mid-century Mor- Times, Gourmet, Bon Appetit, Saveur and PHOTO WHO mon America by a self-described agnostic Harrowsmith. As well as being a founding feminist. Smith was assassinated when he member of FarmFolk/CityFolk and ran for the presidency of the U.S. in 1844. SlowFood Vancouver Island, Jones helped Dachsel includes an appendix listing the 34 is for Funk organize the second Canadian Chefs’ Con- wives, their ages and marriage dates. gress held in BC in 2010 and he operates a 978-1-927380-40-6 HAVING SERVED AS THE CITY OF VICTORIA’S food consulting company, Magnetic North inaugural poet laureate from 2006-2008, Carla Cuisine. His interest in wild foods, forag- Funk is one of 77 female poets featured in the ing, and First Nations ethnobotany has led is for Edythe landmark anthology Force Field (Mother to his tenth cookbook, The Deerholme Tongue $32.95) edited by Susan Musgrave. Mushroom Book: From Foraging to HAVING WRITTEN THE FIFTH BOOK IN THE It's the first major anthology of BC women po- Feasting (Touchwood $29.95) with more Unheralded Artists of BC series, profiling ets since 1979. Funk grew up in Vanderhoof, than 140 recipes that include Truffle Potato Ina D.D. Uhthoff in 2012, Christina the geographical centre of B.C., originally a Croquettes; Mushroom Pate; Porcini Naan; Johnston-Dean has added the sixth vol- Mennonite settlement. “Having grown up in a Semolina Mushroom Cake; Beef Tenderloin ume, The Life and Art of Edythe world of logging trucks, storytellers, ladies’ sew- and Oyster Mushroom Carpaccio; and Cur- Hembroff-Schleicher (Mother Tongue ing circles and rural realism,” according to her ried Mushroom and Coconut Bisque. $34.95) with an introduction by Kerry entry, “she turned to poetry as a place to drown Carla Funk 9781771510035 Mason. 978-1-896949-27-7 the images of her upbringing.” 978-1-896949-25-3 continued on page 8

6 BC BOOKWORLD SUMMER 2013 7 BC BOOKWORLD SUMMER 2013 BRITISHCOLUMBIA How Does Your Garden Grow? WHO’SWHO

Garden Plots Canadian Women Writers and Their Literary Gardens SHELLEY BOYD

Adeena Karasick

Publishing with former D&M art director Peter Cocking. Their new Vancouver- is for Karasick based imprint intends to release five non- fiction titles this fall. “I guess you could say IMPENETRABLE TO SOME READERS, ADEENA This fresh, literary approach to Canada’s that we know what we don’t want to do,” Karasick’s This Poem (Talon $19.95) gardening culture reveals that gardens grow is described as a self-reflexive romp through says Nadeau. “We have a strong allergy to and change not simply in the earth, but also the fragments of post-consumerist culture debt.” Third time plucky. Go Figure! in the style of Facebook updates and ex- in the pages of our books. tended tweets. The self-styled co-founding director (Minister of Semiotic Turbulence) $29.95 paperback for the KlezKanada Poetry Festival, is for Olson Karasick is “mashing up the lexicons of Stein, Zukofsky, Shakespeare, Whitman, the recent VETERAN VANCOUVER SUN GOLF, RUGBY AND financial meltdown, semiotic theory, Lady hockey columnist Arv Olson, beginning Gaga, Derrida and Flickr streams.” in 1937, was a leading force in promoting McGILL-QUEEN’S UNIVERSITY PRESS mqup.ca golf in B.C. for over 35 years, having played 978-0-88922-699-9 Follow us on Facebook.com/McGillQueens and Twitter.com/Scholarmqup on 75 courses in the province and been an associate editor of B.C. Golf Magazine. Af- is for Levitt ter retiring to Fanny Bay on Vancouver Is- land, Olson self-published Backspin! 100 Years of Golf in B.C. (Par Four Publications, THE WRITINGS OF EIHEI DOGEN (1200–1253), founder of the Soto School of 1992) and a 2004 history of Fanny Bay, the Zen Buddhism, have been studied by Zen community south of Courtenay that’s known students for centuries, particularly his for its oyster industry. Olson has revised his masterwork, Shobo Genzo or Treasury of golf history in Backspin: 120 Years of Golf in British Columbia (Heritage $28.95). the True Dharma Eye. With Kaz 978-1-927051-41-2 Tanahashi, Peter Levitt of Saltspring Island has edited The Essential Dogen, Writings of the Great Zen Mas- is for Powel ter (Shambhala $17) and provided an ex- tensive essay, called A Walk With Dogen Into Our Time, to help contemporary read- VAN CLAYTON POWEL, FOUNDER OF MIND ers find ways to bring Dogen into their lives. Body Fitness Inc., is a registered psychiat- 978-1-61180-041-8 ric nurse who also specializes in detoxifica- tion, addictions treatment, and emergency assessments. He spent years in Asia train- is for Massey ing in ancient medical systems, martial arts Think and yoga. Powel’s teaching in You Are NOT What You Eat: Better Digestive FATHER DUNSTAN Health In 7 Simple Steps (Mind Body AUTHOR Massey dropped out of high school at Fitness / Sandhill $19.95) arises from win- There’s a story inside you. the age of 18 and dedi- ning his own battle with chronic digestive cated his life to God . problems. He happily reports he can eat Join our community of anything he wants again. He suggests eating writers and let it out. For five decades since then, as one of between meals might shorten your life; Daphne Sleigh the few remaining “there’s a brain in your gut that could chal- fresco artists in Canada, he has adorned the lenge the one in your head to a chess match” walls of the Benedictine monastery near and eight glasses of water a day could be Mission where he lives, and created sculp- bad for your digestion. 978-0-9879789-0-5 tures for the grounds. The Artist in the Cloister (Heritage $26.95) by Daphne Sleigh introduces Massey in this illus- is for Quercus THE WRITER’S STUDIO trated biography. 9781927051405 Be part of our award-winning, part-time MALEEA ACKER’S GARDENS AFLAME: GARRY Oak Meadows of BC’s South Coast (New creative writing program. is for Nadeau Star $19) is number 21 in the Trans- Join us for a free info session October 3, 2013. montanus series of short books about BC HAVING BOTH BEEN LAID-OFF AS EMPLOY- www.sfu.ca/creative-writing subjects, is a portrait of Quercus garryana, ees for Duthie Books and Douglas & our own native oak. The book describes the McIntyre—two book industry mainstays First Nations techniques which created the that became insolvent and put their staff on Garry oak meadows, and details efforts to the street—Richard Nadeau and preserve their dwindling habitat.9781554200658 Chris Labonté have formed Figure 1 continued on page 11

8 BC BOOKWORLD SUMMER 2013 9 BC BOOKWORLD SUMMER 2013 10 BC BOOKWORLD SUMMER 2013 WHO’SWHOBRITISHCOLUMBIA continued from page 8 Marina Sonkina in Moscow prior to her emigration in 1987. The Russian expat will be interviewed at SFU is for Xanthaw is for Rose downtown, August 14 as part of the Summer Writes series. ACCORDING TO HER PROMOTIONAL MATERIALS, RACHEL ROSE’S THIRD COLLECTION, SONG www.sfu.ca/summer-writes Sharon MacGougan worked for 30 and Spectacle (Harbour $18.95) was years as a music teacher in the public school shortlisted for the Audre Lorde Award for system prior to her retirement and becom- Lesbian Poetry, presented by the Publish- ing a Pak Hok (White Crane) kung fu in- ing Triangle, given to a poet in Canada or structor with 18 years experience training the United States. It commemorates Lorde, and teaching in Vancouver. Active in Am- an American poet, essayist, librarian and nesty International, with a focus on indig- teacher. Rose has also been shortlisted for enous issues, she has written an e-novel, the Pat Lowther Memorial Award, pre- The Mayan Mysteries (Blue Angel $1.98), sented by the League of Canadian Poets about “the disappearance of the ancient (LCP). The award is given to a female poet Maya” although the Maya still persist in in Canada and honours Pat Lowther, Central America. The protagonist whose career was cut short by her untimely Josephine, learns the identity of her father death in 1975. 978-1550175851 at age fifteen. When he vanishes, “Josephine embarks on a journey, accompanied by Xanthaw, a Mayan high priest from the ancient past and Juan, a young man who acts as her protector and guide. Together they battle the dark forces in a series of adventures through Mexico, Peru and Egypt.” ASIN: B00AHOM0PM is for Taylor is for Vickers is for Yawnghwe

Rachel AT AGE EIGHTY, TONY TAYLOR RETURNED RAVEN BRINGS THE LIGHT (HARBOUR Rose NOT ALL OF THE 77 WOMEN IN THE POETRY to British Columbia from his home in Syd- $19.95), by Robert “Lucky” Budd anthology Force Field (Mother Tongue ney, Australia, to fish the Cowichan River and artist Roy Henry Vickers features $32.95) are well-established authors. Born with his eight-year-old grandson, Ned, and 12 new prints from the artist, and tells the in Chiang Mai, Thailand, Onjana is for Sonkina teach him how to fly-fish. In the realm of story of Weget bringing light to the world, a Yawnghwe of Burnaby co-founded a lit- Thoreau, Taylor offers meditations on the Northwest Coast legend that has been erary journal Xerography and operates a MULTILINGUAL SCHOLAR MARINA SONKINA natural world in Fishing the River of Time: traced back three millennia by archaeolo- micro-press for hand-made publications that has led literary tours to Europe and released A Grandfather's Journal (Greystone gists. In a time when darkness covered the include her chapbook The Imaginary Lives several collections of fiction, most recently $19.95). Taylor pays tribute to the natural land, the story goes, a boy named Weget of Buster Keaton. Yawnghwe has also pub- Comrade Stalin’s Baby Tooth (MW history of the area; its geology and its ear- turns into a raven and flies from Haida Gwaii lished in Ricepaper and The Best Canadian Books $29.95). Illustrated by colourful lier fishermen. 978-1-77100-057-4 into the sky, where he tricks the Chief of the Poetry in English. She received the 2012 Van- propaganda posters from the Stalinist era Heavens and manages to bring the sun—kept couver Mayor’s Arts Award for Emerging that glorify socialism and the Russian peo- in a box—back to earth. This version of the Literary Artist. Her work first appeared in 4 ple, Comrade Stalin’s Baby Tooth is a hard- tale originates from Chester Bolton, poets (Mother Tongue 2009). 978-1-896949-25-3 cover, satirical novella that opens with an is for Ursula Chief of the Ravens, who told it to Vickers. acerbic but alluring character portrait of 978-1-55017-593-6 Joseph Stalin. HAVING FOUNDED LEAF PRESS IN 2001, Sonkina’s introductory essay describes Ursula Vaira is emerging as one of the is for Zhindagee Stalin’s horrific reign with a purposeful glib- foremost publishers of poetry in the prov- is for Wanda ness, punctuated by a few personal asides ince, along with Nightwood Editions, Anvil MAHINDER KAUR DOMAN’S ANTHOLOGY about her relatives. The grotesqueness and and Mother Tongue Press. Her latest Leaf CREE POET WANDA JOHN-KEHEWIN IS Zhindagee has received the 2013 Shakti madness of life in the USSR under Stalin is anthology is Poems from Planet Earth another successful product of the SFU Writ- Award in the Business and Entrepreneur- then described through the eyes of eleven- (Leaf Press $20), edited by Yvonne ers Studio, having just released her first col- ship category. It’s a collection of memoirs year-old Natasha as she tries to make sense Blomer and Cynthia Woodman lection, In the Dog House (Talonbooks from some of the first South Asian females of the fears and cruelty that encompass eve- Kerkham, featuring 117 poems from the $16.95), is divided into four aspects of the born in Canada, from 1920 to 1950, whose ryday life. The story is packaged by de- Planet Earth Poetry group in Victoria that is Medicine Wheel. Her work has been pub- parents all came from the Punjab. The signer Wlodzimierz Milewski in the named after the late P.K. Page’s poem lished in the Aboriginal Writers Collective mother of each of these women was affected manner of a document from KGB files and Planet Earth. Before founding the publish- West Coast anthology Salish Seas and she by the exclusion of South Asian females, yet it’s clearly a personal protest against ing company Leaf Press in 2001, Vaira describes herself as “a First Nations woman even though they were British subjects, the absurdity of the totalitarianism from worked at Oolichan Books for ten years. searching for the truth and a way to be set from entering Canada until after 1920. which Sonkina fled. 978-0-9868776-2-9 978-1-926655-58-1 free from the past.” 978-0-88922-749-1 978-0-9811913-0-0 www.zhindagee.ca

11 BC BOOKWORLD SUMMER 2013 ✦ ✦ WWW.LIBROSLIBERTAD.CA ✦ ✦ WWW.LIBROSLIBERTAD.CA ✦ STANDING AT AN ANGLE TO MY AGE GEORGE SEFERIS – POEMS short stories poems by by P.W. Bridgman George Seferis translated by Manolis This fictional writing explores ... everyone is in need of ✦ universal all the others. We must themes of forgiveness look for man wherever we WWW.LIBROSLIBERTAD.CA and redemption, can find him. When on his WWW.LIBROSLIBERTAD.CA of love and loss, of hope way to Thebes Oedipus

✦ and hopelessness and encountered the Sphinx, darkness and light. his answer to its riddle The author is concerned was: “Man”. That simple – as are so many of us – word destroyed the ✦ Paperback 5.5 x 8.5 in with the lineaments ✦ Paperback 5.5 x 8.5 in monster. We have many ✦ 165 pages and poetic chiaroscuro ✦ 253 pages monsters to destroy. Let ✦ ISBN: 9781926763255 of seemingly ordinary ✦ ISBN: 9781926763231 us think of the answer of

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✦ JAZZ WITH ELLA a novel by Jan DeGrass While on a study tour of the Soviet Union during the austere Brezhnev years, Jennifer, a Canadian ✦

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✦ WATER IN THE WILDERNESS THE UNQUIET LAND a novel by a novel Doris Riedweg by Ron Duffy Happily married to her The newly ordained beloved Morley, Father Padraig returns Tyne Cresswell is content to his home village of in her dual role of Corrymore as its new ✦ farmer’s wife and hospital priest.

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✦ of her patients sets the souls” of the proud, in motion a series of pagan fisherman ✦ Paperback 9 x 6 in heartbreaking events ✦ Paperback 6 x 9 in Finn MacLir and his ✦ 220 pages that neither she nor ✦ 250 pages daughter Caitlin by ✦ ISBN: 9781926763194 Morley could ever ✦ ISBN: 9781926763200 converting them to ✦ $23.00 have imagined. ✦ $23.00 Christianity...

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GREAT EXPLORATIONS

IN THE SHADOW OF THE GREAT WAR The Milligan and Hart Explorations of Northeastern British Columbia, 1913–14 Jay Sherwood $19.95 July In 1913, George Milligan and E.B. Hart led two small government-funded expeditions in the northeastern corner of British Columbia. Just as these explorers completed their work, World War I began, and the data they gathered was ﬁled away and forgotten.

A century later, historian Jay Sherwood brings to light the story of Milligan and Hart – how they conducted their explorations in 978-0-7726-6637-6 a harsh and unforgiving environment, what their reports meant for the province, and how both men fared in the Great War.

OTHER BOOKS BY JAY SHERWOOD

978-0-7726-5742-8 978-0-7726-6283-5 978-0-7726-6491-4 $39.95 $39.95 $19.95

All Royal BC Museum books are distributed by Heritage Group.

www.royalbcmuseum.bc.ca/publications

12 BC BOOKWORLD SUMMER 2013 covereview FICTION BY JOHN MOORE fifty extra pounds of lard into a In A Nose for Death, Joan rocky as she enters middle age, it’s school outcast best friends, Hazel A Nose for Death by Glynis Whiting party dress and the Lothario of the Parker is the Girl Least Likely to still a long way from Madden, a and Gabe, she’d leave Madden and (Thistledown Press $18.95) locker hall reduced to a beer-bellied Make Good who actually did. town so small Kamloops was the those years in the cardboard box in four-eyed schnook with a bald spot Gifted with olfactory receptors a big smoke, where she endured daily the attic of her memory where N HER FIRST, BUT PROBABLY you could land a jumbo jet on? We cut above the normal curve, Joan is humiliations as the daughter of an they belong. But Whiting has not her last, murder mystery, sniff at the details of their bank- one of those people, like improvident father who died early, tapped into the fact that the feel- Glynis Whiting gets it right I ruptcies, affairs, divorces and sub- winemakers and coffee tasters, who forcing her mother to work as a ings you had for people when you straight out of the gate. It’s hard to stance abuse issues like dogs around makes her living with her nose, chambermaid at the local hot sheets were that age never die. Joan de- imagine a more perfect setting for a a ripe trash can. analyzing and developing new motel while Joan had to quit school cides to go to the reunion, only to murder than a high school reunion. flavors for a corporate food to pull graveyard shifts at a gas bar discover that the bad feelings you After all, reuniting with classmates conglomerate. She’s a owned by the father of the high had about people when you were of twenty and thirty years ago is corporate star and school queen bee. that age are just as persistent and largely an indulgence in what the if her personal Since she didn’t graduate and the wounds are just as fresh—ex- Germans call schadenfreude— a life is a little only later went back to school, cept that now they can prove fatal. shameful pleasure in the mis- driven by an interest in the chemis- Her high school best friends, fortune of others—especially try of scents, Joan assumes her in- Hazel, now an out-front lesbian liv- if you were scorned by the vitation is either a mistake or a ploy ing in San Francisco, and Gabe, the cliques whose influence by someone to tap a successful former anarchist punk turned dominates a teenage alumnus for a donation. But for the RCMP officer in charge of the social life totally chance of meeting her fellow high continued on page 14 centered around school. Don’t we all want to see the Bitch Prom TEN FACTS Queen packing YOU MAY NOT KNOW ABOUT YOUR NOSE

1. Smell is the oldest sense. The olfactory bulb is seated in the most primitive area of the brain. Sea creatures survived by smelling their environment long before they could taste, see, hear, or touch.

2. Every human has a unique smell, the same as a fingerprint.

3. Moisture helps disperse scent molecules, which is why we notice the fresh smells after it rains. A moist nose keeps a dog’s sense sharp. But a wet snout is not the only reason that canines sniff so well. Dogs detect scents at concentration levels 100 millions times lower than humans!

4. Women are more likely to detect aromas than men. Studies using MRIs have shown that women can smell when a man is sexually aroused or frightened. Incidents of “intuition” are often traced to the sense of smell. In an area of the brain the size of a thumbnail, humans can process ten thousand different scents, but are unaware of most of them. PHOTO

5. Our sense of smell is most powerful when we are hungri- HEWLETT est. Between seventy-five and eighty percent of what we KEN “taste” is detected though smell.

6. Zinc helps to improve the sense of smell. It’s no coincidence that oysters, very high in zinc, are touted as an aphrodisiac.

7. Studies have found that the scent of donuts is one of the most powerful sexual aroma stimulants to men.

8. Smell is referred to as our memory sense. The olfactory bulb is located next to the area of the brain responsible for memory. One sniff of a scent from our past can resurrect long- buried memories. (If you’re studying for an exam, trying chewing a fra- grant gum then chew the same gum in the examination room. That minty-freshness might just score you an A+.)

9. We can improve our Wake up and smell the sense of smell; take a brisk walk, stay hydrated, sniff a strong odour for several minutes each day. But be- ware of foul smells. Ex- tended exposure to the compost pail, the out- house, or other stinky aromas will impair the sense of smell.

10. The best news for last. Smell doesn’t nor- mally deteriorate until we reach our seventies, long after our sight, hearing, Foul play at a high and taste have faded. It’s one of the last of the MURDERschool reunion gives senses to go.

rise to Glynis Whiting’s [In A Nose for Death, protagonist Dr. Joan Parker is first Joan Parker mystery, a chemist who uses the A Nose for Death. same set of skills to solve murder cases as she does to design scents and fla- vours for the food industry.]

13 BC BOOKWORLD SUMMER 2013 covereview FICTION continued from page 13 good a read to wreck by giving away no socialist demagogue could for Madden detachment, both have more of the plot. Whiting does an five minutes. By the middle of the conflicted personal lives and her old uncomfortably fine job of creating 20th century, mystery writers arch-enemy Marlena, gym-buffed characters most of us born between shifted their aim to society at large, in pursuit of perpetual youth, is 1950 and 1970 will recognize at a exploring the dark emotional under- still the spoiled brat queen bee of glance, especially if you grew up in side of ordinary people, their own Madden society. Worst of all, the a small town. She makes effective neighbours, under extreme stress, town’s one-hit-wonder band, Rank, use of Agatha Christie’s device masked by the uniform civility of has re-formed to play the reunion of confining her characters to a small suburban life. dance. Roger, the band’s singer stage, (isolated country house, Baby Boomers are supposed to whose failed attempt at a solo ca- moving train, tour group etc.) with- be the most self-obsessed navel- reer has dragged him through every out the obvious contrivances Dame gazing generation in history, yet sewer between Madden and L.A. Agatha and her imitators often re- surprisingly few novelists from and back, is as odious as only a sorted to in purely plot-driven mys- that generation have made use of small town star that has sunk to teries. But modern mysteries, from the plot device of having the chick- the level he merits can be. He and Raymond Chandler to P.D. James ens of political, social and sexual Joan have history, as they say, and and Ruth Rendell, are driven not revolutions come home to roost. By it’s not the stuff of romantic memoir. by plot, but by character, and Whit- using the device of the high school By the time the first evening ing creates characters as familiar as reunion, Whiting successfully cap- meet-and-greet winds up, scabs the people we all went to school tures and juxtaposes the changed have been ripped off all over the with. values of two distinct eras in her room and everyone’s Inner Teen- Mystery writers fly under flags characters’ lives. Though Whiting ager has re-emerged, literally with as false as their characters. Posing makes use of Joan’s ‘professional a vengeance. After such an event, as mere purveyors of generic ‘en- nose’ as a plot device in the novel, most people reassume Adult form tertainments’—a description THETHE ORIGINALORIGINAL she doesn’t make it a cheap trick to when they retreat to their hotel Graham Greene used to describe resolve the plot. A Nose for Death rooms, ask themselves what they some of his best novels—they have is really about the people in a small were thinking when they accepted been our most perceptive and in- NOSEY PARKERPARKER town in B.C., how they were in the invitation to an occasion so fluential social critics. When the Matthew Parker, the 16th century Archbishop of their youth and what they have fraught with unresolved emotions, genre emerged in the late 19th and Canterbury and Dean of Corpus Christi College, had an insatiable become as adults. Ultimately, that’s have a nightcap and go to bed. But early 20th centuries, they zeroed curiosity and, thus, became known as the first “Nosey Parker.” His much more interesting than the for someone in the class, that’s not in on the class system in Britain addiction to collecting books resulted in the largest library at murder plot and that’s the sign of a Cambridge University. Glynis Whiting, who took this photo, is now going to be enough. and the meritocracy of money in good novel. 978-1927068403 working on her second Nosey Parker Murder Mystery, having written, It’s hard to review murder mys- North America, using genre fiction directed and produced more than twenty documentary films. Based teries without inadvertently drop- to expose ‘the best people on their on her manuscript for A Nose for Death, Whiting received the Mayor Also a novelist, John Moore has ping spoilers. I’m not going to, worst behavior’ and captivated of Vancouver’s Emerging Literary Artist Award in 2012. contributed book reviews to publi- because A Nose for Death is too mass audiences for hours in a way cations for more than twenty years.

14 BC BOOKWORLD SUMMER 2013 15 BC BOOKWORLD SUMMER 2013 20TH GEORGE WOODCOCK LIFETIME ACHIEVEMENT AWARD WILLIAM NEW Poet, editor and children’s author William New edited Canadian Literature at UBC for seventeen years, almost as long as his mentor George Woodcock. Among his fifty books, New has edited the Encyclope- dia of Literature in Canada. Appointed to the Order of Canada in 2006, he recently received the City of Vancouver Book Award for YVR (Oolichan). A free, celebratory reading for the Woodcock Award will be held at Vancouver Public Library on June 25. INFO: www.georgewoodcock.com

Since 1995, BC BookWorld and the Vancouver Public Library have sponsored the Woodcock Award and the Writers Walk at 350 West Georgia St. in William New Vancouver. This $5000 award is also sponsored by Writers Trust of Canada and Yosef Wosk. RYGA AWARD FOR SOCIAL AWARENESS IN LITERATURE JOEL BAKAN Joel Bakan is the 2013 recipient of the George Ryga Award for Social Awareness in Literature. He was selected for his critical exposé Childhood Under Siege: How Big Business Targets Children (Penguin / Free Press). The other finalists were Michael Christie’s The Beggar’s Garden, and Howard White’s A Hard Man To Beat. INFO: www.georgerygaaward.org Joel Bakan Since 2004, BC BookWorld has co-sponsored this award with Okanagan College (Norah Bowman-Broz, coordinator).

for Outstanding Scholarly THE BASIL STUART-STUBBS PRIZE Book on British Columbia DEREK HAYES The inaugural Stuart-Stubbs Prize was presented at UBC Library on May 9, 2013 to geographer and map aficionado Derek Hayes for British Columbia: A New Historical Atlas (D&M), also winner of the BC Historical Federation’s top prize for historical writing. Dererk Hayes INFO: about.library.ubc.ca/awards/basil-stuart-stubbs-prize BC BookWorld co-sponsors this new award with UBC Library (Ingrid Parent, chief librarian). GRAY CAMPBELL DISTINGUISHED SERVICE AWARD

The Association of Book Publishers of BC is grateful SHERYL MACKAY for the sponsorship of Friesen Printers, Hemlock The Gray Campbell Distinguished Service Award is presented annually to an indi- Printers, Rhino Print vidual who has made a significant contribution to the book publishing industry in Solutions and BC BookWorld. B.C. This award, which is named for pioneering publisher and founder of Gray’s Publishing, Gray Campbell. The 2013 winner, Sheryl MacKay, is the popular host of CBC’s North by Northwest radio program on Saturday and Sunday mornings. Sheryl MacKay JIM DOUGLAS PUBLISHER OF THE YEAR AWARD

The Association of Book Publishers of BC is grateful ANVIL PRESS for the sponsorship of Friesen Printers, Hemlock The Jim Douglas Publisher of the Year Award is presented annually to a Printers, Rhino Print Solutions and BC BC book publishing company that has earned the respect of the prov- BookWorld.

Karen Green and ince’s community of publishers. It is named after Jim Douglas, founder of Brian Kaufman, J. J. Douglas Publishers, and was presented in 2013 to Anvil Press, Anvil Press founded by Brian Kaufman. ALL PRIZES SUPPORTED BY PACIFIC BOOKWORLD NEWS SOCIETY BC INFO ON THESE & OTHER PRIZES: 604-736-4011 • WWW. BCBOOKAWARDS.CA BOOKWORLD

16 BC BOOKWORLD SUMMER 2013 FICTIOBC NGOING COASTAL Spirits & secrets Darkness & the pastor HAVING PUBLISHED AN IMPORTANT BIOGRA- SET IN THE COWICHAN VALLEY, RICK DEWHURST’S FOURTH phy of Captain William Henry novel, The Darkest Valley (Quotidian $14.98), introduces McNeill, the namesake for Port McNeill a pastor whose wife is dying of cancer, and whose young on Vancouver Island, retired physician aboriginal convert is in danger of being grabbed and initiated Robin Percival Smith has returned to into Longhouse spirit dancing rituals. He recruits a local West Coast subject matter for his second newspaper editor to publish an exposé about the longhouse. novel, Strange Possession at Viner Sound Then his wife’s secret is revealed. Dewhurst of Duncan, (Amazon $21). At 622 pages, it’s described B.C., created the City Gate Church for which he has served by Smith as a story of spiritual possession as pastor since 1995. 978-0986745768 and reincarnation that uses the traditional culture of the Kwakiutl. The spirit of Jojo, a young Kwakiutl boy, possesses Matti, a sin- Church before marriage gle-handing sailor on board his sailing vessel, HAVING ALREADY BEEN DISAPPOINTED BY A SAILOR’S Windsong, to tell of his captivity at a attention, Holly is surprised to find herself falling in love secret Japanese radio base on the West Coast with Eric, a handsome naval officer, whose child attends the This cover image of Emily Carr in a wedding dress Little Treasures daycare centre in Victoria, where she works. during World War Two. 9781478320746 for Woo Woo by Veronica Knox is a collage of Carr’s head, courtesy of Royal BC Museum, and a bridal One of the reasons she falls for Eric, a single father, is his photograph by Julia Margaret Cameron of the Royal obvious love for his son, Ian. But can they make a successful Harlow’s return Photographic Society, taken of her daughter-in-law trio, as a family? She eventually confides, “Eric, I’m a Chris- HAVING EXPERIMENTED WITH RELEASING HIS THIRD WW II on her wedding day in 1869. Julia Margaret Cameron tian, and while I know you know what was also the great aunt of Virginia Woolf. novel Necessary Dark as a Print on Demand (POD) title, that is, I want to make sure you know veteran novelist Robert Harlow, a former head of UBC what that means. For starters, it means creative writing, has produced a connected, follow-up novel, that I’m saving myself for marriage, no Faraday Comes Home (Xlibris $19.99 / $3.99) available as Sex and the single Emily matter how much I love a man. This is a paperback or e-book. “It’s about an old guy becoming 80, VERONICA KNOX OF VANCOUVER ISLAND HAS SELF- non-negotiable.” In a refreshingly old in 2003,” he says, “who has never been able to return from published a short novel about Emily Carr, Woo Woo: school twist, the bible school-edu- his war and who is less than enamoured with becoming old.” The Posthumous Love Story of Miss Emily Carr (Silent cated heroine in Heather Recuperating from major surgery, he K $18.95), as well as a lengthy biography of Leonardo Westing’s debut novel A Les- falls in love with a younger woman da Vinci’s sister, Lisabetta, Second Lisa (Silent K son in Love (Promontory who seems to already know him. $29.95). Both books incorporate paranormal elements $11.99) wants to get her man into Harlow grew up in Prince George, to allow for direct conversations with their subjects. The the church before she gets herself joined the RCAF at the end of 1941, Carr novel recalls a would-be lover, Martyn, who roman- to the altar, or into bed. “Trust in trained as a pilot and flew Lancasters tically pursued Emily Carr for forty-six years after being the Lord, and He will do wonders,” smitten with her on the sea voyage which took her to and Halifaxes as a bomber pilot from Heather she hopes. But first Eric, a wid- bases in England until 1945. Ucluelet, British Columbia, in 1899, at twenty-seven Westing ower, will have to unburden him- Robert Harlow 978-1-47714-391-9 years of age. Woo Woo 978-0-9877415-1-6; Second Lisa: 978-0-9877415-0-9 self about his past. 978-0-9866722-7-9

See fi nalist books, tour photos and more at www.bcbookprizes.ca

Read the winners of the 29th annual BC Book Prizes

Hubert Evans Dorothy Livesay Bill Duthie Booksellers’ Non-Fiction Prize Poetry Prize Choice Award Geoff Meggs and Sarah de Leeuw Shelley Fralic, with research Rod Mickleburgh Geographies of a Lover by Kate Bird The Art of the Impossible NeWest Press Making Headlines: 100 Years Harbour Publishing Christie Harris Illustrated of The Vancouver Sun The Vancouver Sun Roderick Haig-Brown Children’s Literature Prize Regional Prize Alan Woo and

Derek Hayes Isabelle Malenfant Photo Victoria of photos: University Burns (r) Sherry Services (l), British Columbia: A New Maggie’s Chopsticks Win The Winners Contest Historical Atlas Kids Can Press Lorna Crozier and Sarah Ellis Enter to win a collection of all seven recipients of the 2013 Douglas & McIntyre Sheila Egoff Children’s winning titles. See participating lieutenant governor’s Literature Prize award for literary excellence Ethel Wilson Fiction Prize stores and contest details online Bill Gaston Caroline Adderson Established in 2003 by the Honourable Iona at www.bcbookprizes.ca. Contest The World Middle of Nowhere Campagnolo to recognize British Columbia Hamish Hamilton Canada, Groundwood Books runs from June 1–30, 2013. writers who have contributed to the development Penguin Group Canada of literary excellence in the Province.

17 BC BOOKWORLD SUMMER 2013 FICTIOBC NMYSTERIES

The aging actor mystery PART INTELLECTUAL MYSTERY and part spiritual adventure, A Year At River Mountain (Thistledown $19.95) by Michael Kenyon tells the story of an aging actor from Vancouver who has immersed himself in monastic life in China and is now examining his past as an actor, husband, and father. As his Western consciousness melds with Taoist philosophies and acupressure techniques, he assesses his life and records the struggles of transformation that accompany

such thinking. 978-1-927068-04-5 Michael Kenyon

death of an art gallery owner. As if a homicide isn’t enough to goes a “radical lifectomy”—starting her life over at 53, fol- deal with, Margaret Spencer must also contend with ad- lowing a divorce. She takes a job as an intern in the Conser- vances from her estranged husband and planning her vation Lab, whereupon she and the museum director, also daughter’s marriage. 978-1-927129-42-5 the same age, are suspects in a murder case. It’s not just a whodunnit. It’s also a novel about growing older, and grow- The psychic & the psycho ing up, examining more closely one’s actions, body and be- liefs, including what is right. 978-1-897411-38-4 FORCED TO LEAVE THE WORKFORCE IN 2000 BY THE ONSET OF MS, Karen Magill has conceived a self-published series in keeping with her mission “to make the paranormal nor- Drugs, sex, perversion

mal.” In Missing Flowers (Saga $14.95), psychic Julie Seer SALT SPRING ISLANDER PHYLLIS dreams of women being murdered and she inhabits the body Smallman’s fourth novel, Cham- of a Chinese prostitute in Vancouver during the late 1800s. pagne for Buzzards (McArthur & Chevy Stevens After attending a Vancouver police Co.) has been nominated for the Bony press conference for a new task force Blithe Mystery Award in the inau- to investigate the disappearance of gural year of the competition. Each Killer Dad prostitutes from Vancouver’s Down- year the winner will be announced at THE THIRD RELEASE FOR NANAIMO REALTOR CHEVY town East Side, Julie and Detective the annual Bloody Words conference Phyllis Smallman Stevens’ three-book deal with St. Martin’s Press is Al- Santoro Ricci, with the help of a sex for mystery writers in late spring. In ways Watching (St. Martin’s / Macmillan $29.99). Set in trade worker, work together to find her newly released Highball Exit (TouchWood $18.95), de- Victoria, it focuses on the personal demons that beset Dr. the killer—who entraps both women. tective Sherri Travis is hard-up for cash so she accepts her Karen Magill Nadine Lavoie, the psychiatrist for Chase’s first heroine, 978-1897512678 aunt’s job offer to investigate the “highball exit” of Holly realtor Annie O’Sullivan, who was kidnapped, raped and Mitchell, detouring her into the world of drugs, sex workers tortured, and her second heroine, Sara Gallagher, who dis- Radical lifectomy and perversion. Did Holly really take the highball exit, or covered her father was a killer of women for thirty years. was she murdered? And what happened to her baby? WRITE ABOUT WHAT YOU KNOW, THEY SAY. FORMER 978-0-312-59569-2 9781927129791 UBC Museum of Anthropology conservator Miriam Brewed murder Clavir has launched a series of character-driven mystery Drugs, death, Whistler AFTER STINTS IN AFGHANISTAN, EX- novels with Insinuendo: Murder in the Museum (Ba- WHEN A YOUNG SNOWBOARDER Canadian Forces commander Bern yeux Arts $19.95), a story of intrigue in the world of art and named Sacha iS found dead on Fortin expects a quiet life when he artifacts, told with humour, and set in the UBC Museum of Blackcomb Glacier and Whistler po- moves to a mountain town in B.C. to Anthropology. After Berry Cates, the protagonist, under- lice want to call it suicide, the FBI work as a coroner. Then the body of sends Clare Vengel to infiltrate the a local brewery worker is found float- partying crowd in Robin Spano’s ing in a bottle washing tank and the third crime procedural thriller, body of the dead man’s girlfriend is Death’s Last Run (ECW $14.95). Deryn Collier Robin Spano discovered in a field. Bern and the Turns out, Sacha, daughter of a U.S. brewery’s safety inspector Evie must risk their lives to find senator, was involved in LSD smuggling in cahoots with a murderer. Set in a town closely resembling the author’s the top cop at Whistler. 978-1-55022-997-4 hometown of Nelson, Deryn Collier’s debut novel Con- fined Space (Touchstone $19.99) was shortlisted by the Crime Writers of Canada for the Arthur Ellis Award for best Foodie crime prof A WORLD-FAMOUS VINTNER HAS DIED IN THE OKANAGAN unpublished first crime novel. 9781451669473 and Welsh-born Vancouver criminology professor and foodie Cait Morgan can’t resist unraveling the mystery in Gallery of death The Corpse and the Golden Nose (Touchwood $14.95). The UBC Museum of Anthropology is THE FIFTH TITLE IN GWENDOLYN SOUTHIN’S MYSTERY In the debut installment of this series, The Corpse with the carrying Insinuendo by former staffer series about detective Margaret Spencer, Death as a Fine Silver Tongue, Welsh-born added a dollop of Miriam Clavir (above), a murder Cathy Ace Art (Touchwood, $14.95), plants Southin and Spencer square mystery about theft in its confines. romantic suspense by sending her detective to investigate in the 1960s Vancouver art scene as they investigate the murder in Nice, France. 978-1-927129-88-3

18 BC BOOKWORLD SUMMER 2013 CONGRATULATIONs TO ALL OF OUR 2013 BC Book Prize WINNERS Nominees from Harbour Publishing from Geoff Meggs & Rod Mickleburgh Douglas & Mcintyre WINNERS OF THE Hubert Evans Non-Fiction Prize Derek Hayes FOR WINNER OF THE The Art of the Impossible Roderick Haig-Brown DAVE BARRETT AND THE NDP IN POWER 1972-1975 Regional Book Prize AND SHORTLISTED FOR THE Bill Duthie Booksellers’ Choice Award Daniel Francis FOR SHORTLISTED FOR THE BRITISH COLUMBIA Bill Duthie Booksellers’ Choice Award A NEW HISTORICAL ATLAS FOR TRUCKING IN BRITISH COLUMBIA: An Illustrated History Harold Kalman & Robin Ward photographs by John Roaf Marc Strange & Jackson Davies SHORTLISTED FOR THE FOR THE SHORTLISTED Bill Duthie Booksellers’ Choice Award Bill Duthie Booksellers’ Choice Award FOR AND THE EXPLORING VANCOUVER: An Architectural Guide Roderick Haig-Brown Regional Book Prize FOR BRUNO AND THE BEACH: The Beachcombers at 40 www.harbourpublishing.com | www.douglas-mcintyre.com

19 BC BOOKWORLD SUMMER 2013 BC BOOK PRIZES IKMQ by Roger Farr

“The characters distill expression out of the poem like one distills whiskey” —Melissa Dalgeish, Canadian Literature

A finalist for the Dorothy Livesay Award at the BC Book Prizes, IKMQ is avant-garde poetry infused with play and humour. Follow the characters I, K, M and Q as they convert houses to grow-ops, get up early to catch Emcee Grant chinook, plot a prison break, and transform Lawrence the world through their revolutionary action.

www.NewStarBooks.com

{ Winner Of The 2013 } DOROTHY LIVESAY POETRY PRIZE

Wilson Prize nominees Yasuko Thanh (left) & Anakana Schofield (right) share limelight with Egoff Prize winner Caroline Adderson

OSTED BY THE HONOURABLE JUDITH GUICHON, Triple crowned map Prize for outstanding scholarly book about B.C. as well as the Lieutenant Lieutenant Governor of British Columbia, and Governor’s medal for best history book from the venerable B.C. Histori- emceed by rocker-turned-broadcaster Grant collector Derek Hayes cal Federation. Publisher Howard White, having replaced originating Lawrence, the 29th annual B.C. Book Prizes pulled away from the publisher Scott McIntyre, read a statement from Derek Hayes on had its usual mix of glitz and glitches at Gov- pack at the his behalf: “If a picture is worth a thousand words, a map is surely worth ernment House in Victoria on May 4, 2013. Two much more, in my opinion. I hope my book will in some small way Hwinners did not attend (Derek Hayes and Lorna Crozier), two promote the greater use of maps in historical research.” presenters forgot to read their lists of nominees, and, as usual, at least one The Hubert Evans Non-Fiction Prize went to Geoff Meggs and winner came to the podium without having prepared a speech. But the Rod Mickleburgh for The Art of the Impossible: Dave Barrett and gals got gussied-up, the boys dressed like politicians and emcee Grant the NDP in Power, 1972-1975 (Harbour). Mickleburgh cited the impor- Lawrence did his level-best to generate some chuckles. 29th tance of Hubert Evans’ classic 1954 novel Mist on the River to him as Non-fiction nominee George Bowering was described by Law- BC Book Prizes a writer and referred to Evans, a Quaker and a freelance writer, as “one of rence as the Keith Richards of Canadian literature. Lawrence was on my heroes.” Geoff Meggs thanked their publisher Howard White. “I’ve a roll for much of the evening, citing the 50th anniversary of Munro’s never laid eyes on him from the time he agreed to publish our book until Books in Victoria, and referencing an anecdote from former literary arts tonight,” said Meggs, “so I am glad to know he exists.” bureaucrat Chris Gudgeon about having once smoked a joint with The Dorothy Livesay Poetry Prize went to Sarah de Leeuw for Premier Dave Barrett, until Lawrence unwittingly referred to Lorna Geographies of a Lover (NeWest). “This is an incredible privilege for a Crozier’s representative for the evening—her long-time partner, poet girl who grew up in a logging camp on Haida Gwaii,” she said. Having Patrick Lane—as Mr. Crozier. worked with women’s groups, de Leeuw thanked all librarians and femi- Having taken some heat from Brian Brett, last year’s recipient of nists in the province. "Boldly erotic" —Sharon Thesen the Lieutenant Governor’s Award for Literary Excellence, for having pre- The Christie Harris Illustrated Children’s Literature Prize once again "Intense and passionate" —Nancy Holmes sented that award to eight men in a row, organizers took the extraordinary went to a non-B.C. illustrator, Isabelle Malenfant, for Maggie’s measure of presenting it simultaneously to two recipients, Chopsticks (Kids Can) written by . “Growing up,” said "Brave, overt, and almost overwhelming" —Alberta Views Lorna Cro- Alan Woo zier and Sarah Ellis, both of whom received $5,000. Other prizes are first-time author Woo, “I never saw myself or my culture represented in worth $2,000 each. a children’s book.” NeWest Press|newestpress.com Available now from The Ethel Wilson Fiction Prize went to Bill Gaston, for his novel The Sheila A. Egoff Children’s Literature Prize went to Caroline The World (Hamish Hamilton). “I guess this is fourth-time-lucky,” said Adderson for Middle of Nowhere (Groundwood). Adderson has been Gaston, who has had three previous fiction nominations. He thanked his No, Rod Mickleburgh nominated three times for the adult fiction prize, winning for her first & Geoff Meggs are not a editor and said the opening scene of the novel was inspired by the time “I comedy duo; they’re fiction collection in 1994 and again for a novel in 2004. Audrey Tho- kind of burnt my house down smoking some salmon on the deck.” If winners of the Hubert Evans mas has also won the Wilson Prize twice, but Adderson is a rare three- Non-Fiction Prize gender is supposed to count, Gaston is the 10th male winner of the time winner at the gala. Wilson Fiction Prize and there have been 19 female winners. The Bill Duthie Booksellers’ Choice Award went to Shelley Fralic The Roderick Haig-Brown Regional Prize went to Derek Hayes’ for Making Headlines: 100 Years of The Vancouver Sun (Vancouver Sun), British Columbia: A New Historical Atlas (D&M). Hayes is easily the big with research by Kate Bird. “I wrote it in six weeks,” she said, “which, BC BOOKLOOKHere is win-win-win & situation. AWARDS winner of the season, having also received the first Basil Stuart-Stubbs I have to tell you, is worse than natural child birth.” B.C. BookWorld is pleased to announce a new omnibus service for keeping track of major book awards in B.C. As a precursor to launching a daily news service to be called BC BookLook, we’ve built an adjunct site exclusively devoted to award-winning B.C. books and authors. Publishers and authors are welcome to send info and advertise their latest news and accomplishments. MILLER Visit www.bcbookawards.ca MONICA

PHOTOS BC BOOKLOOK Sarah Ellis, co-winner of the ALL Aaron Chapman, Haig-Brown nominee Patrick Lane & novelist Esi Edugyan Lieutenant Govenor’s Award for Literary Excellence Nominated publishers Michael Katz (Tradewind) & Rolf Maurer (New Star)

20 BC BOOKWORLD • LOOKOUT • SUMMER • 2013 21 BC BOOKWORLD • LOOKOUT • SUMMER • 2013 British Columbia Historical Federation Awards for Historical Writing

Winner of the 2012 Second Place Honorable Mentions Ann-Lee and Gordon Switzer, Jay Sherwood, Furrows in the Lieutenant Governor’s Gateway To Promise: Canada’s Sky: The Adventures of Gerry Medal for historical writing First Japanese Community Andrews (Royal BC Museum) (Ti-Jean Press) Daniel Francis, Derek Hayes Third Place Trucking in British Columbia: Robert Harley, For King and An Illustrated History (Harbour) British Columbia: Country: 150 Years of the Royal Westminster Regiment David Esson Young, A New Historical Atlas (Vivalogue Publishing The Uchuck Years: A West Coast (Douglas & McIntyre) Canada Ltd.) Shipping Saga (Harbour)

Congratulations to all of these authors! The awards were presented at the British Columbia Historical Federation’s Derek Hayes awards banquet on May 11 in Kamloops, part of a three-day conference entitled Historic Grasslands. For more information about the Federation’s projects and programs visit www.bchistory.ca

LIQUOR, LUST, Association for AND THE LAW Asian American The Story of Vancouver’s Legendary Studies History Penthouse Nightclub Aaron Chapman Book Award WINNER! Roderick Haig Brown Regional Prize Finalist Theodore Glamour, scandal, murder: the Saloutos fabled history of Vancouver’s

famous nightclub. PHOTO Book Award WINNER! SAWCHUK

978-1-55152-488-7; $24.95 LAURA

HOW POETRY SAVED MY LIFE A Hustler’s Memoir SUBVERTING EXCLUSION Amber Dawn Andrea Geiger’s first book, Subverting Ex- By the author of the award- clusion: Transpacific Encounters with winning novel Sub Rosa. Race, Caste, and Borders, 1885-1928 (Yale “Powerful and necessary.” $45) expands on the SFU history professor’s —The National Post previous research on race and borders. The book examines how traditional Japanese no- 978-1-55152-500-6; $15.95 tions of caste-based social status converged with North American race-based laws and poli- cies to produce a dual system of exclusion for Japanese immigrants in Canada and the U.S. As the first English-language book to be published on this subject, it has been awarded Yale University Press the 2011 Theodore Saloutos Book Award yalepress.yale.edu ARSENAL PULP PRESS by the Immigration and Ethnic History Soci- 304 pages • 6 1/8 x 9 1/4 ety and the 2013 Association for Asian 18 b/w illustrations www.arsenalpulp.com READ OUR BLOG: arsenalia.com American Studies History Book Award. 9780300169638 • $45

22 BC BOOKWORLD SUMMER 2013 FICTIOBC NGOING COASTAL Asbestos noir

BY JEREMY TWIGG Rock Reject by Jim Williams (Roseway/Fernwood $19.95)

ETER STEVENS HAS HIT ROCK BOTTOM. He holds himself accountable for his Théodora Armstrong Rebecca Campbell Bill Gaston Dede Crane Pgirlfriend’s death. Plagued with guilt, Debut stories Union Steamship & Emily he drops out of medical school and leaves To- ronto to punish himself by becoming a labourer THE DEBUT COLLECTION BY JOURNEY PRIZE NOMINEE AS A FIFTEEN-YEAR-OLD HOPING TO CONNECT WITH A Théodora Armstrong of Vancouver, Clear Skies, No logging father in the summer of 1930, after the death of his at an asbestos mine in northern B.C. Wind, 100% Visibility (Astoria/Anansi $22.95), includes mother in Vancouver, Matthew Clayton rides the Union The cold, wet, grey weather reflects his defeated state- eight mainly British Columbian stories set around the prov- Steamship line north in Mel Dagg’s first novel, Passage of-mind as he arrives at the Stikine mine, ‘Home of the World’s ince, including her 92-page novella that concludes the vol- on the Cardena (TouchWood $19.95). Among the passen- Finest Asbestos.’ Welcome to 1973, where smoking is the ume, ‘Mosquito Creek.’ Having won a Western Magazine gers he encounters is a painter named Emily Carr, also on norm, and asbestos hasn’t yet become a dirty word. Award in 2008, Armstrong has paid her dues by publishing a voyage of discovery. In a denouement, we learn that Matt Set in the ‘one-time town’ of Cassiar, Jim Williams’ in the requisite literary mags and has garnered would serve for 28 years as a quartermaster aboard novel Rock Reject starts off at a deliberately slow, dreary endorsements from short story whiz Mark Anthony that ship. Dagg once worked as a deckhand on an ocean- pace until Peter makes a gruesome discovery in ‘rock re- Jarman and up-n’-comers Steven Galloway and going towboat. 978-1-927129-33-3 ject,’ where ore is crushed for processing. “Twenty feet Michael Christie. 978-1-77089-102-9 away and coming towards him on the conveyor belt was a Mayne Islander dark shape. A lumpy pile of rags. A parka, coveralls, boots. Budding author Alfred Cool A pool of red.” This is the moment our reluctant hero wakes from his mental fog. FORMER ADVERTISING COPYWRITER, STAGEHAND, RECORD- The tragic accident in rock reject catapults Peter from ing engineer and chandelier cleaner E. R. (Eric) Brown, newbie labourer to safety crusader. He joins the union and is a composer and performer, born in Montreal in 1955. He uses his medical training to push Pan-American Asbestos, lived in Vancouver from 1977 to ’81, then returned perma- commonly known as ‘The Company,’ to control the green nently to Vancouver in 1989. In Brown’s gritty, coming-of- asbestos dust that blankets the mine, the town, and the age debut novel, Almost Criminal (Dundurn $17.99), an valley. No one seems to care about the valley. As one worker overly-bright, seventeen-year-old high school drop-out remarks, “It’s only Indians live down in the valley.” Rac- named Tate MacLane takes refuge with a small-town B.C. ism is rampant. marijuana dealer as his father figure. 978-1459705838 Old haunts Woodsman of the west NARRATED BY A GRUFF CHOKERMAN IN A COASTAL LOGGING REBECCA CAMPBELL’S DEBUT NOVEL THE PARADISE Engine (NeWest $19.95) is a mystifying story that melds camp in 1973, Al Cool’s self-published The 5-Cent Mur- the vaudeville era of Vancouver history with contemporary der (alcoolbc.com) is in the style of Peter Trower’s fic- Vancouver. While working to restore the old Temple Theatre tional trilogy, part of a distinct West Coast fiction tradition in the city’s seedy downtown core, a history graduate stu- dating back to Roderick Haig-Brown’s Timber (1942) dent named Anthea is haunted by a vaudevillian tenor named and On the Highest Hill (1949) and going all the way back to Liam who sang at the theatre a century before. When M.A. Grainger’s 1908 classic Woodsmen of the West. Anthea is fired from her job, the spirits persist. Originally “There is a trick to this ‘honest writing’ that has to come from Duncan, Rebecca Campbell has a Masters in from the blood and bone to the keyboard,” says Cool. “I get it now—Writing stories is all or nothing. Anyone can talk English from UBC. 978-1-927063-21-7 about style, linguistics, components, form; not everyone has the guts it takes to write exposed and vulnerable, angry, All in the family desperate, sobbing and laughing.” TWICE SHORTLISTED FOR VICTORIA’S BUTLER PRIZE, Dede Crane has fashioned a suite of stories emanating Ethel Wilson Prize winner from the fictional Wright family for Every Happy Family (Coteau $18.95). Married parents Jill and Les are beset by BILL GASTON’S THE WORLD (HAMISH HAMILTON $32) IS THIS Jim challenges such as a mother with Alzheimer’s and a cancer year’s winner of the Ethel Wilson Fiction Prize. It’s the Williams diagnosis that Les keeps secret. story of an early retiree who accidentally burns down his Life must plod on. An house on the day he pays off the mortgage, only to discover adopted daughter ex- that, for the first time ever, he’s forgotten to pay his insur- plores her roots; eld- ance premium. His old friend, a musician, prepares for her Action is slow to build, but the series of tragic events that est son Quinn suicide to end the pain of esophageal cancer. And her father, unfold feel as though they’re gleaned from first-hand experi- combats shyness; who left his family to study Buddhism in Nepal, ends his ence. Peter’s mental fog borders on frustrating, but his awak- younger son days in a Toronto facility for Alzheimer’s patients. The ening after the accident at the crusher is satisfying: “He lay Beau copes three are tied together by a book called The World, written his hands open on the desk. Calloused and strong from swing- with boarding by the old man in his youth. The book, possibly biographi- ing a pick and shovel, he clenched them into fists and watched school. A fam- cal, tells the story of a historian who unearths a cache of his forearms grow, bigger than he had ever seen them before.” ily grows. letters, written in Chinese, in an abandoned leper colony off It’s a turning point. Action will be taken. the coast of Victoria. He and his young Chinese translator 9781550505481 The novel is historically-based. At issue is whether the fall in love, only to betray each other. 9780670065837 type of asbestos the company mines is harmful to human health. As the safety inspector incorrectly informs Peter, Addiction & rehabilitation “The scientists say that chrysotile fibre doesn’t cause disease, and that’s that.” Trouble is, the scientists are in the HAVING TAKEN THE FALL FOR HER DRUG-DEALING, SOME- back pocket of industry. time-boyfriend Jimmy Flood and his sidekick, Blacky Rock Reject is a worthwhile read. What it lacks in sur- Harbottle, Louella Debra Poule is doing an eighteen-month prise, it more than makes up for in authenticity. As the au- stint on a weapons charge at a minimum-security insti- thor points out, “More than 100,000 people die each year Tom Osborne: tution In Tom Osborne’s Budge (Anvil $20), set from lung disease caused by occupational exposure to asbes- madcap follies in the in the Fraser Valley. It’s described as another tale of tosis.” Williams’ work of fiction is firmly rooted in truth. Fraser Valley madcap human folly about friendship, betrayal, ad- 9781552665169 diction and rehabilitation. 978-1-897535-99-8

23 BC BOOKWORLD SUMMER 2013 foreignaffairs FICTION In her first novel Conceit (Doubleday, 2007)—for which Mary Novik received the by means of her beauty and talent. elderly Pope Clement VI: Ethel Wilson Fiction Prize—we were introduced to the daughter of the poet John Donne, the Solange also lives through the Since the papal bed was too literate heroine Pegge Donne, who audaciously rebels against her father’s plans for her arranged plague, experiences prophetic vi- short for us to stretch out fully, marriage in seventeenth century London. Now, in Muse, Novik imagines a literate, nun-turned- sions, is suspected of sorcery and we embraced sitting up, then witnesses the burning at the stake turned sideways to pleasure one prostitute named Solange Le Blanc, who inspired Francesco Petrarch’s love poetry, only to be of her maid who is mistaken for another. His desire keen and accused of sorcery when a plague kills one-third of Avignon’s population. Set in Renaissance herself. quickly satisfied, his manners Europe, the novel recounts how Petrarch’s fictional mistress was forced to reinvent herself in Throughout all these adven- courtly, Clement was always re- order to survive. Our reviewer describes Muse as a cross between Umberto Eco’s The Name of the tures, Solange’s love for Petrarch gretful to dismiss me to my cham- Rose and Margaret Atwood’s The Handmaid’s Tale. The novel will be available August 15. remains steadfast, even as she takes ber. As I left, his stewards rushed other lovers. One of these is the in to sit him up, for the Pope must sleep upright in case God called him in the night. The various strands that make up the story are linked by Novik’s overarching passion for the world SOLANGE of literature and her interest in the role of women in that world. The AND THE ruthlessly ambitious Petrarch, a man torn between two women who nurture his art in different ways, FLAMING SPEAR looks to Solange for practical help and for the satisfaction of his Muse by Mary Novik indispensable amanuensis, (Doubleday Canada $22.95) sexual needs. However, the copying, editing and en- conventions of courtly love re- URING THE FOURTEENTH- couraging his verse. The quire him to find his inspira- century, the papacy two become lovers: tion in a less earthy, more Dwas based for seventy This act so new to me, so ethereal woman—the high- years not in Rome, but in Avignon, quick, so carnal, was born, unattainable Laura. now part of France. It was here that also spiritual, for in that Thus the title of the novel the Italian scholar and poet mutual joy our base affections takes on an interesting ambi- Francesco Petrarch came to im- were transmuted into purer guity. prove his fortunes, and where he metal, as alchemy turns lead to As an unprotected woman with wrote the poems to Laura for which gold. Surely this ecstasis, like no family, Solange is trapped by he is best known. The sonnet form being pierced by a flaming the conflicting ambitions of those to which he gave his name influ- spear such as angels carry, was with better prospects or power. enced many English po- how the soul felt when it Petrarch is proud of the son she ets, including Sir Thomas pierced the resurrected bears, but he cannot allow his Wyatt and Shakespeare. flesh. A nightjar whirred child to be raised in a brothel. While his clerical sta- as it took flight above continued on page 26 tus prevented Petrarch the chapel and I came from marrying, the back to myself slowly, records indicate that he Joan cautiously, knowing that fathered two children by I had been forever an unknown woman. To GIVNER changed. this hitherto unknown woman From this point, the pace of Mary Novik gives substance and a the novel accelerates as strong narrative voice for her sec- Solange’s entanglement ond novel, Muse. with Petrarch, his conniv- Petrarch’s mistress is Solange, ing brother, and his best born in a brothel in Avignon as the friend sets her on a illegitimate daughter of a pope and headlong course. Over- his mistress. Following the death coming rape, coerced of both her parents, the precocious sex, childbirth and the child is taken into Clairefontaine kidnapping and loss Abbey, where her gift for prophetic of her children, she visions (she experiences her first becomes a pica- vision while in the womb) is en- resque heroine couraged by the abbess, who who survives dreams of nurturing a prophet- saint, like the legendary German mystic, abbess and composer Hildegard of Bingen, to glorify her abbey. At Clairefontaine, Solange de- Once again velops skills as a scribe and a lin- guist until the rich promise of her life as a nun and a woman of letters Mary Novik is brought to an abrupt end by a brutal rape. Solange is attacked in brings a literate the scriptorium by a visiting Florentine cleric and subsequently propelled from the cloister “out- woman out wards into the world of men.” Returning to her birthplace in of the shadows Avignon, Solange survives among the prostitutes as a professional PHOTO scribe. It is this literary work that of history. BAXTER brings her to the attention of

Petrarch. She quickly becomes an JANET

24 BC BOOKWORLD SUMMER 2013 25 BC BOOKWORLD SUMMER 2013 FICTIOBC NFOREIGN AFFAIRS Mary Novik: Artist in Italy SET AGAINST A LANDSCAPE WHERE hills still shelter secrets from Etrus- Muse can times, Barbara Lambert’s continued from page 24 The Whirling Girl (Cormorant $22) She concludes, “I had been betrayed by Francesco, by this explores the layered nature of desire, city of men, by this church that turned honest women into Barbara Lambert and asks what really are the condi- courtesans because canons were forbidden to marry.” The tions that foster art, or love—or the suppression of her own talent recalls Virginia Woolf’s unearthing of civilization’s buried stories. As a child, botani- meditation on the tragic fate of Shakespeare’s sister if she, cal artist Clare Livingston was enthralled by her uncle’s tales too, had been born a genius. of lost civilizations. Now, after years of estrangement, she When Solange seeks refuge once more at Clairefontaine, has unexpectedly inherited his property in Italy. She travels she again falls prey to the ambitions of the abbess. This time to the hill town of Cortona, hoping to find the meaning of it is the narrative of her protegee’s life to which the abbess Nazis killed most of the males in Kalavryta. this disturbing gift, left by the uncle who fled his family lays claim. She wishes it to be written as hagiography, with when she was a teen. Instead she is swept up in a world of the prophetic visions and sainthood bringing fame to her archaeological intrigue where new friends and lovers reveal abbey. If Solange’s checkered past doesn’t exactly lend itself Gossip in Greece suspect aims. Her evasions lead her along a twisting path until—as even her ability to paint is compromised—she is to saintly treatment, it can be edited and reshaped. BORN IN CAIRO, STELLA LEVENTOYANNIS HARVEY FOUNDED ✍ the Whistler Writers Group in 2001. With dual narratives forced into an excavation of her own complex history. 978-1-77086-093-3 THERE IS NO DOUBT THAT THE SENSATIONAL TWISTS AND TURNS from a father and a daughter, her first novel, Nicolai’s Daugh- of Novik’s plot, the rapid changes of scene, and the piling on ters (Signature $22.95), profiles the tragedy-ridden of horrors, all combine to give this story a wide appeal. A Sarinopoulous family in the village of Diakofto, on the Gulf Exiles in Constantinople minority of readers might regret that Novik’s thoughtful of Corinth. During visits to Diakofto twenty-five years apart, IN HER DEBUT NOVEL, THE MIDWIFE OF VENICE (DOUBLEDAY subject matter is overwhelmed by the trappings of popular both are haunted by shameful village gossip emanating from 2011), former family lawyer Roberta Rich told the story historical fiction—rapes, tortures and grisly corpses and the WW II massacre of Greeks by of Hannah, a barren Jewish midwife living in the Venetian sometimes over-heated prose. Nazis at nearby Kalavryta. Ger- Ghetto Nuovo, in the late 1500s, when the bubonic plague Regardless, the various themes in Muse—women as man soldiers exterminated almost ravished Europe and the Inquisition forced Jews to convert nurturers of male artists, as muse figures, as artist’s models all of male population and com- or flee. Hannah risks her life, and endangers her ghetto, to and subjects—are skilfully woven by Novik, and given pletely destroyed the town in save a Christian baby, enabling her to pay ransom for her resonance by her knowledge of the historical and literary December of 1943. Over 500 husband, who was captured at sea. Rich will release a fol- background. Her quotations of lines from Petrarch’s sonnets people were killed, with only 13 low-up in October, The Harem Midwife (Doubleday in the original Italian, followed by English translations, are male survivors. It was a reprisal for $22.95), in which Venetians in exile, Hannah and Isaac Levi, especially well done. 978-0-385-66821-7 the killing of 78 German soldiers who have set up a new life for themselves in Constantinople. had been taken prisoner by While Isaac operates in the silk trade, Hannah plies her trade Herself a novelist, Joan Givner of Mill Bay has written Greek guerillas in October. as a midwife within the opulent palace of Sultan Murat III, Stella Leventoyannis Harvey biographies of Katherine Anne Porter and Mazo de la Roche. 978-1897109-97-7 tending to the thousand women of his harem. 978090385-67666-3

26 BC BOOKWORLD SUMMER 2013 “As west coast as it gets!” COAST, STAY-CATION OR WILD GET-AWAY, IN Take a COMPANION HOLIDAY GREAT A MAKES BOOK GOOD A EAST, FAR THE IN ROAD, THE ON WEST, OUT WAY CAMPER, A IN DOCK, A ON HAMMOCK, A Great book with you this summer

SOUTH, UP COUNTRY OR AT THE Sensational Victoria by Eve Lazarus A glimpse into aspects of the city of Victoria rarely talked about in the tourist brochures THE 5 CENT MURDER or flowery guidebooks. 2nd novel in a series of 5 “Sensational Victoria is one of the Times Colonist Alfred Cool’s e-novel THE 5 CENT MURDER, year’s best.” – set in 1973, follows a narrator who takes a “Forget the postcard-perfect Victoria you think you know, Sensational chokerman job in a remote B.C. coastal logging Victoria explores the capital city’s old camp. He soon realizes the company has hired structures and the not-so-saintly work-release prisoners to fill out the full crew— spirits that haunt them.” including a dangerous, serial rapist. In this narra- – Seattle Metropolitan Magazine tive comedy, the author captures the local color, $24 | 978-1-927380-06-2 high-risk taking and humour of those who did “run or die!” in logging camps, culminating in a con- “U-235 & Me” to be Everything Rustles frontation for the finale of the story. released June 2013 by Jane Silcott Contact: [email protected] In this debut collection of www.alcoolbc.com personal essays, Silcott looks at the tangle of midlife. THE 5 CENT MURDER and DRY CAMP! are available in paperback: www.amazon.com, $14.95 / $9.95 • ISBN-13: 978-1481128674 or ISBN-10: 1481128671 “A wonderful book, a book of wonders.” Also available as eBooks: Barnes & Noble (for NOOK), Apple iBookstore (for iPad), – Stephen Osborne, Geist Amazon (for Kindle), Copia, Sony, Baker & Taylor, Gardners Books, KOBO “Her work is fearless, honest, and every sentence is edged like a gem.” – Curtis Gillespie, Editor, Eighteen Bridges $18 | 978-1-927380-41-3

Some Girls Do by Teresa McWhirter A new edition of the debut novel from the author of Dirtbags and Five Little Bitches. “The humour and wordplay alone mark McWhirter as a writer to watch.” – Quill & Quire “A sharp, poetic glimpse into the yearning but hopelessly unfocused lives of a group of marginal urbanites...surprisingly, McWhirter makes them touching rather than alienating.” – Elle Canada $18 | 978-1-927380-50-5

Stolen by Annette Lapointe A new edition of Lapointe’s award-winning debut novel. “It moves with the force of what’s right and true and must not be elided.” – Giller Prize Jury “a powerful and unconventional novel. It marks a very impressive debut.” – Word Magazine “this is a novel of redemption” – Winnipeg Free Press $20 | 978-1-927380-49-9

ON A PLANE, ON A TRAIN, IN A CAR, AT THE BAR,Anvil IN A TENT, ON A BUS, Press AT THE CABIN, ON A BOAT,is UP NORTH, represented DOWN & distributed by PGC/Raincoast. anvil www.anvilpress.com

27 BC BOOKWORLD SUMMER 2013 FICTIOBC NFOREIGN AFFAIRS

Middle East 1 Antarctica WHEN GILA GREEN LEFT CARLETON UNIVERSITY, SHE SAW A DESCENDANT OF THE POLAR EXPLORER an advertisement for an apprenticeship at the Jewish West- Roald Amundsen on his mother’s side, ern Bulletin newspaper and came to Vancouver where she Jay Ruzesky visited Antarctica on the also undertook freelance journalism at the Jewish Commu- centenary of Amundsen’s arrival at the South nity Centre in 1993-1994, then moved to Israel. She has Pole to write a “mongrel” book of both memoir since published short stories in literary magazines and an- and fiction, Antarctica: An Amundsen Pil- thologies in the U.S.A., Canada, Australia, Israel and Hong grimage (Nightwood $24.95). Amundsen Kong. Her first collection White Zion reached the South Pole on December 14, 1911; was nominated for the Doris Bakwin Ruzesky reached Antarctica on a 71-metre Literary Award and her work has been ice-strengthened research vessel, Polar Pio- nominated for six international “At the end of the earth, I escaped my own petty jealousies, envy, guilt, covetousness, and bad temper. In the face of the neer, in December of 2011. “The Polar re- awards. Her first novel, King of the world at its most majestic I was opened more widely to gions are terrifying, deserted, and unknown,” Class (Now or Never $19.95), is a experience and understood the gift life is to me. What I found says Ruzesky, “and the stories others have futuristic satire set in a post-civil war in Antarctica was wonder revealed, and I came back a little brought back are tales of struggle and Israel, published from Vancouver. raw, a little vulnerable, somewhat weary, and a little forever Gila Green changed.” — JAY RUZESKY failure.” 978-0-88971-282-9 978-1-926942-14-8 Middle East 2 Ireland 1 Ireland 2 MEDIEVAL THINKING CLASHES WITH MODERNITY IN ERNEST FIRST PUBLISHED BY POLESTAR IN 2002, AISLINN HUNTER S RAISED IN BANGOR, NORTHERN IRELAND, PATRICK TAYLOR Hekkanen’s 30th fiction release, a political and psycho- ’ Stay (Anchor $19.95) is being re-issued in synch with the of Bowen Island had eight books about Northern Ireland logical novel, Heretic Hill (New Orphic $22), his 45th book release of a film version at the Toronto International Film including his first novel, Pray for Us Sinners (2000), which since 1987. Hoping to prevent the primitive execution of his Festival starring Aidan Quinn. The story provides an portrayed the Troubles of 1973-74 in Belfast. British Army friend, Dr. Sadhar Badhar, in an unnamed Middle East coun- introspective look at a village outside Galway, Ireland, where bomb disposal officer Marcus Richardson goes undercover try, New York Times correspondent Aki Kyosolamaki, the Abbey, a young Canadian, has an unconventional, affection- in the Falls Road ghetto to identify the source of Provisional narrator, risks his own life when he is permitted to visit ate relationship with Dermot, an older Irish man who is a IRA bombs, fellow Ulsterman Davy MacCutcheon, who Badhar in the Reeducation Center for Misinformed Individu- disgraced academic. If only Dermot could find some way of becomes disenchanted with the IRA when his handiwork is als, ostensibly to convince Badhar to confess his sins against making her stay…. “A fence,” he thinks. employed to kill civilians. Davy wants to leave Ire- Islam. Ever prolific, Hekkanen previously released Flesh and “Everyone should have one. And at that land with the woman he loves, but not be- Spirit: The Rasputin Meditations, a poetry collection. moment Dermot believes it, thinks fore he undertakes a final mission. The 978-1-894842-23 that his problems might be solved, lives of both men are entwined in a solvable, if he can contain plot to kill the British prime them, separate them. Mine minister. As Samuel and yours. The bungalows Johnson said, “The road over there, the cottage to hell is paved with good over here and Dermot intentions.” Out of and Abbey in the print for six years, middle of it, drawn Pray For Us Sin- together by a ners (Forge / patch of land, Raincoast wood and wire $28.99) has around them.” just been re- 978-0-385-68062-2 released. 9780765335180

Benjamin Madison: West African novel Danzania TRAINED AS AN ANTHROPOLOGIST, BENJAMIN MADISON worked for seventeen years in Nigeria, Togo, Ghana, Sierra Leone and The Gambia, giving rise to his first novel about a cocky, indomitable protagonist, Long Legs Boy (Oolichan $19.95). Set in a fictional West African country of Danzania, it’s the Oliver Twist-like tale of Modou, orphaned after his family dies from AIDS. Leaving his remote village, Modou attaches himself to an African holy man and becomes a beggar in the city where he becomes increasingly well-known due to his daring escapes from the police. The sixteen stories in Madison’s first book, The Moon’s Fireflies, chiefly arose from his stint as a volunteer English teacher in Nigeria at Udong Community School. 978-0-88982-290-0

Africa novel: 2 wins out of 4 nominations DERIVED FROM THE AUTHOR’S EXPERIENCES IN SOUTH SUDAN, THE DEBUT novel by Saskatchewan-born Melanie Schnell, While The Sun Is Above Us (Freehand $21.95) was shortlisted for four Saskatchewan Book Awards, winning the Regina Book of The Year and the First Book Award. The novel provides two female perspectives of war and contemporary slavery in that area of Africa. Schnell, a graduate of UBC creative writing, had no way of knowing that the remote South Sudan region would Melanie Schnell writes of slavery and civil war become newsworthy as the planet’s youngest nation. Republic of South in South Sudan.

Sudan became an independent state in 2011. 978-1-55481-061-1

28 BC BOOKWORLD SUMMER 2013 Sturgeon Reach Strange Possession at Viner Sound Shifting Currents at the Heart of the Fraser Transmontanus #20 A novel by Robin Percival Smith by Terry Glavin & Ben Parfitt This is a story of spiritual possession and reincarnation that uses the traditional cul- As the Fraser River tumbles down from ture of the Kwakiutl aboriginals on the Brit- Hope, its slowing currents deposit gravel, ish Columbia west coast. The spirit of Jojo, carried from the Interior, along a stretch called Sturgeon Reach. Home for millennia to a young Kwakiutl boy, possesses Matti, a spawning salmon, pre-historic sturgeon, and single handing sailor on board his sailing the Sto:lo Nation, Sturgeon Reach is now vessel, Windsong, to tell of his captivity at also a rich gravel mine supplying suburban a secret Japanese radio base on the west development. Ben Parfitt and Terry Glavin coast during WWII. explore the area’s critical role in the coastal ecosystem in this compelling story about CONTACT: [email protected] competing human and environmental needs. www.robinpercivalsmith.wordpress.com www.createspace.com/3648661 for story synopsis and author biography. www.NewStarBooks.com ISBN 10: 1478320745 • ISBN 13: 9781478320746 The book may be downloaded from Kindle bookstore.

Voyage Through the Past Century A Memoir by Rolf Knight

Rolf Knight is an independent socialist scholar and one of BC’s most important and influential historians. In Voyage Through the Past Century he focuses his keen eye and lively prose on his own extraordinary life, from his upbringing in working-class East Vancouver to his experiences in Berlin, Colombia, Nigeria, New York City, and Canadian academia. The result is a vivid, 20 plus thoughtful, and wholly engrossing memoir. From the author of Along the No. 20 Line. varieties

www.NewStarBooks.com

Gardens Aflame Garry Oak Meadows of BC’s South Coast Transmontanus #21 by Maleea Acker

Victoria writer and environmentalist Maleea Acker tells us about the Garry oak, its unique and vanishing ecosystem, and the people who have made it their life's work to save this species along with the environment - including the human environment - it depends on. #5 - 1046 Mason St. Victoria, B.C. V8T 1A3 (just off Cook Street) • Tel: 1-250-384-0905 Hand sorted for premium quality • Full selection of exotic teas • B.C. honey and Belgian chocolates • Mail orders welcome www.NewStarBooks.com www.yokascoffee.com Check out Anita’s Revolution, Victoria’s Shirley Langer’s new book on Cuba.

After Desire by George Stanley

“Don’t gaze into the abyss,” George Stanley says in After Desire, his eighth book of poetry, “Gaze out.”

These are poems firmly rooted in the materiality of the city, inspired by a beautiful waiter in Stanley’s Kitsilano neighbourhood, a conversation in a local pub, a glance exchanged with a baby on the bus. They contain the contemplations of a poet — and a consciousness — as they confront old age, “stripped of even the desire for desire.”

www.NewStarBooks.com

29 BC BOOKWORLD SUMMER 2013 FICTIOBC NFOREIGN AFFAIRS

stories that trace the history of Vietnam from the 11th cen- Far East 1 tury to the present in Imagining Vietnam (Impress $10.99). Far East 4 BEFORE IMMIGRATING TO We meet Lan, a 13-year-old girl in 1067, who dreams of SO HOW MANY NOVELS WRITTEN IN Canada at age nine, having her teeth stained so that she can attain womanhood in Richmond by a white guy get re- Julia Lin was born in ‘The Black Stain,’ an unhappy village wife who two centu- viewed in Hong Kong’s Cha: An Taiwan and also lived in ries later has a passionate affair with a household servant and Asian Literary Journal? That could Vietnam. Her process of almost gets away with it, and a modern woman manager who only be Robert N. Friedland’s adapting to life in To- must weigh the personal and family cost of marrying a for- spicey The Second Wedding of Robert N. Friedland ronto and Vancouver has eigner for his money. Elizabeth McLean lives in Vancouver Doctor Geneva Song (Libros $20) Julia Lin: stories set in led to an historically rich where she is a member of the Grind Gallery Café writers about “the inter-cultural war of the sexes.” Friedland's hero- Taiwan and Vancouver story collection Miah collective managed by Margo Lamont. ine is a sexually adventurous family physician (TSAR $20.95), that re- 978-1-907-605-33-8 who marries outside her Chinese culture. The flects Taiwanese life through three distinct eras: Japanese novel doubles as the story of her child- occupation near the outset of the 20th century, persecution Far East 3 hood friend Deri who overcomes her up- under the Koumintang and, finally, contemporary Taiwan. bringing in remote northeast China to STRETCHING FROM TOKYO TO DESOLATION In the title story, Miah attends her grandmother’s funeral in become a devout Buddhist nun, a concu- Sound, Ruth Ozeki’s third novel, A Tale Taiwan, accompanied by her mother, giving rise to stories bine and then the most powerful female for the Time Being (Viking $28.95) is about that unveil the island’s harsh and complex past. Miah is financier in Canada. Robert Friedland a teenage Japanese girl’s diary, discovered Taiwanese for “fate.” 978-1-894770-99-6 was a two-time city councillor in Victo- by a woman on the West Coast of Canada ria who now practices human rights and when it is washed ashore in a Hello Kitty administrative law in Vancouver. He lunchbox, and how two people who will never Far East 2 is also one of only three writ- meet can be deeply connected. Bullied WHILE TEACHING IN HANOI FROM 2005 TO 2011 ers in Canada to have two at school in Tokyo, upset by her un- Elizabeth McLean developed a curiosity about Viet- of his stories included in employed and suicidal father, Nao namese history and folklore. It inspired her to write eight Stuart MacLean’s loves her 104-year-old great-grand- upcoming fall release mother, a feisty Buddhist nun. Re- Time Now for the Vi- viewed in the New York Times, the nyl Cafe Story Ex- novel is both a mystery and a change (Penguin). meditation. Also a documentary 978-1-926763-17-0 filmmaker, Ozeki is the daughter of anthropologist Floyd Lounsbury. She is married to Ruth Ozeki: a Japanese Canadian land artist and activist Elizabeth girl’s diary Oliver Kellhammer and the McLean: washes Vietnam couple divides their time between ashore in B.C. stories New York City and Vancouver. 978067002663

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30 BC BOOKWORLD SUMMER 2013 foreignaffairs FICTION CLUB MUD No out-of-shape, 50-year-old Canadian woman wants to be battling diarrhea in El Salvador while surviving on rubbery tortillas and watery beans.

BY CHERIE THIESSEN the set-up for Marguerite Pi- Open Pit by Marguerite Pigeon geon’s first novel, Open Pit. (NeWest Press $19.95) There’s no question that Pigeon HERE’S NO JOY IN SLEEP- knows of what she writes, and she ing in flea-ridden old cares deeply about human rights Tshacks, or outdoors on and complicated environmental is- plastic tarps, in the humid, bug-in- sues, but that in itself won’t guar- fested jungles of El Salvador. antee a good novel. Fortunately, No, this is definitely not what Open Pit is not just about good Danielle Byrd, aged 50, volunteered guys and bad guys. Danielle dis- for when she left Toronto covers that the inter-per- to lead a small group of sonal politics within her Canadian human rights own party of kidnap vic- activists. tims—sexy young Tina, She and her compan- religious Martin, cantan- In 2001, Marguerite Pigeon [red shirt] volunteered to work with el Consejo Civico de Organisaciones ions were on their way kerous Pierre, and the Populares e Indigenas de Honduras (COPINH, or Civic Council of Popular and Indigenous to meet the charismatic Cherie gentle Antoine—can be as Organizations of Honduras). “I generally followed them wherever it could help to have a ‘northerner’ Marta Ramos, a co- troublesome as coping present at government meetings and to the small communities,” she says, “as a means of showing founder of the Salvadoran THIESSEN with their living conditions locals that the organization had an international profile.” With a background in television, Pigeon also made two short documentaries for them and wrote updates from Central America for Rights Committee for the Environment, and comprehending their Spanish- Action, the NGO that had connected her to COPINH. Her farewell party [above] was held on the hoping to help locals confront speaking captors. Salvadoran side of the Salvadoran-Honduran border. NorthOre, a Canadian-owned open Back at home in Toronto, pit gold mine poisoning a nearby Danielle’s daughter, Aida, learns of While staying at her mother’s that she was saving for her honey- grace of being about something— river, filling the air with dust, and her mother’s capture but doesn’t home in Toronto, Aida reads her moon in Europe—behaving the the difficulties of indigenous peo- shaking the earth with repeated ex- automatically rise to the occasion. mother’s twenty-year-old letters way her mother might behave. ple who must confront the plosions. Theirs has been a troubled relation- that were sent to Neela. These let- From the letters, Aida becomes combined power of their own gov- One minute the Canadian do- ship; Aida is wary of her mother ters were written when Danielle curious about the former guerrilla ernments in league with Canadian gooders were on a bus to Morazán, and isn’t close to her. As a young was a young, idealistic university leader Carlos who is now a Demo- mining companies. trying to save the world; the next mother, Danielle was too restless student, eager to report the injus- cratic Alliance candidate. Is he on Set in 2005, the story is all too minute a corrupt driver had and young to care for a dependent tices she witnessed in El Salvador the side of the environmentalists? credible for anyone who read the stopped their vehicle at a sugar cane so Aida was left in the care of her during the country’s bloody civil Or is he in league with Mitchell review of Imperial Canada Inc., juice stall and they were all kid- grandparents much of the time. war (1979-1992). Wall, the NorthOre mine owner an exposé about the practices of napped at gunpoint—and trying to Nonetheless, Aida decides she During that civil war, Danielle from Vancouver? Canadian mining companies save themselves. must join the other hostages’ fam- had traveled and lived with a guer- Will Carlos help to liberate the abroad, in the Spring issue of this But it’s not simple. They are ily members in El Salvador, await- rilla faction. The letters won’t nec- hostages or does he want them paper. being held hostage by the good guys. ing the outcome of the hostage essarily heal their mother-daughter dead? It’s all the more believable be- Led by Pepe and his good friend and taking. First, she’ll attend a vigil rift but Aida realizes they hold clues Constantly shifting scenes from cause Marguerite Pigeon herself cousin, Cristóbal; along with and demonstration in Toronto as to who Aida’s father might be, Toronto to San Salvador and the lived for several months near the Cristóbal’s rebellious wife, Rita, and against NorthOre organized by her and why Danielle chose to live such jungle of Morazán province gives Honduran-Salvadoran border in her younger sister, Delmi; Danielle’s mother’s close friend, Neela, who an unconventional life. Open Pit a filmic quality, arguably 2001, protecting a local indigenous captors are not after ransom money. would have been the human rights Within days, Aida finds herself at the expense of characterization. organization by witnessing their Instead they want the remains activists’ leader swatting bugs in the doing very uncharacteristic things: The reader may wind up feeling civil rights demonstrations as a for- of Pepe’s family to be exhumed jungle and fearing for her life had not abandoning the final work term dizzy, like riding a rickety chicken eign observer. 978-1927063323 from the mine site and they want Danielle decided at the last moment placement she’s been assigned to bus, travelling but without experi- operations at NorthOre’s open pit that she wanted to revisit El Salva- complete for her M.B.A. degree encing, a bit dazed. Cherie Thiessen reviews fiction gold mine to be suspended. That’s dor after a decades-long absence. and spending money for plane fare But Open Pit has the saving from Pender Island.

Emilia Poems from Planet Earth Daniela Elza Leanne McIntosh Nielsen with Jack Sproule edited by Yvonne Blomer and milk Cynthia Woodman Kerkham tooth A round-up of poems from readers at bane Dark Surge internationally renowned Planet Earth bone Matter Narrows Poetry in Victoria BC — “launching pad for the energies of writers and poets “The dark-winged protagonists in these The chronicle of a unique journey “If we could taste it, this book established and not.” pages are splintered shards of the self of friendship: Leanne McIntosh's would be salmonberry. It would haunting the branches. Out of the ache poems respond to the prose she has 978-1-926655-58-1 208 pp $20.00 be salt. To read these poems of the present moment, Daniela Elza has chosen from thirty years of private is to stand under a waterfall, crafted something spare and irresistible, correspondence, journals and articles letting the words rush like cold, an open armature for wonder.” from Jack Sproule, her friend of many clean water over the skin. —David Abram decades, a Catholic priest, now retired. A powerful debut." —Anne Simpson with an introduction by with a foreword by Aislinn Hunter Jock McKeen

978-1-926655-60-4 104 pp $16.95 978-1-926655-57-4 104 pp $16.95 978-1-926655-59-8 80 pp $16.95

[email protected] publishing poetry only www.leafpress.ca

31 BC BOOKWORLD SUMMER 2013 FICTIOBC N

portedly communicated with ghosts, as part of a quasi-reli- Chinese Quebec gious Spiritualist movement in the late 1800s, replete with Surviving ANDRÉ LAMONTAGNE’S THE GRAVEDIGGERS (EKSTASIS mediums and séances. A practical New York physician named $24.95) follows a Radio-Canada journalist who returns to Mrs. Mellon reluctantly becomes the link to the sisters, his native Québec City from Vancouver to spend Christmas when only one of them is still alive. Mulligan’s Barkerville- abuse with his family and research Chinese roots for a West Coast based The Reckoning of Boston Jim was longlisted neighbour. The journalist uncovers an unnamed individual for the 2007 Giller Prize and shortlisted for the Secrets Kept / Secrets Told by Ben Nuttall-Smith (Libros Libertad $23) who was fascinated by the fires which decimated Québec Ethel Wilson Prize. 978-0-385-67177-4 City in the 19th century. Originally published as Les fossoyeurs and nominated for the Prix des lecteurs de Radio- EN NUTTALL-SMITH’S SECOND Canada in 2010, this novel, translated into English by Golf Sex novel Secrets Kept / Secrets Margaret Wilson Fuller, unravels little-known facets FORMER VANCOUVER MAGAZINE editor has self- Told is a memoir of surviving the of Québec City, from old graveyards of the Chinese commu- Jim Sutherland nity and a possible traffic in bones, to an unfinished tunnel published a golf novel with sex and debilitating guilt of childhood and the young people squatting in it. Lamontagne is the vice- humour, Stack and Tilt Jim Sutherland B president of the Francophone Historical Society of British (Collingwood Books $14.95/$7.95). sexual abuse during the London Blitz. The story Columbia and head of the French, Spanish and Italian Stud- When he loses his girl and his job, Jeff Jones spends long is true. Only names and places have been ies Department at UBC. 978-1-897430-93-4 days on Big Bill’s driving range, developing a radical way to changed to permit publication as a novel. swing a golf club. When the June issue of Golf Digest arrives, he is disturbed to read a sensational cover story on the new The central character named Paddie is Nuttall-Smith. Parent cons Stack and Tilt swing which seems identical to his own. Just One Saturday evening, Paddie and his wife treated them- HAVING JUST WON THE DANUTA GLEED as he gets a new female companion, both his mother and lost selves to dinner and a movie. The Prince of Tides starred Award for best first collection of girlfriend re-enter his life. Possibly Kevin Costner is Nick Nolte as Tom Wingo, a trauma patient, and Barbara Canadian short fiction with Greedy ready for Tin Cup II. PB: 978-0-9919366-0-1; Kindle: 978-0-9919366-1-8 Streisand as his psychiatrist. Little Eyes, Billie Livingston When three armed convicts break into the Wingo home, chronicles the struggle of 16-year-old violently rape Tom’s mother and his twin sister, Savannah, Sammie Bell to not replicate the Leaping prose and a particularly sadistic con anally rapes young Tom, Billie Livingston scams of two con-artist parents in JAN ZWICKY’S FIRST BOOK OF FICTION, THE BOOK OF FROG Paddie suffered such a vivid flashback to being repeatedly One Good Hustle (Random $22.95). Horrified to realize (Pedlar Press $20), is an amusing narrative with the best raped by an uncle in London during the blitz, that he froze she occasionally wishes her alcoholic mother was dead, promotional copy of the year. The frog has this to say about in his seat and cried audibly. Sammie takes a summer-long vacation with a ‘normal’ fam- it: “The Book of Frog is probably the best book ever writ- After the movie, when everyone else had left the theatre, ily who provide the “weird, spearmint-fresh feeling” of life ten, right up there with The Divine Comedy and Gilgamesh. Paddie was finally able to pull himself together and join his in the straight world. While longing for the approval of Except it’s short and in English! You will like it. In addition wife in the lobby. Without a word, the couple walked to the her con-man dad, Sammie worries she could be genetically to being action-packed and by me, it has some great pictures car and, as was customary, Paddie got behind the wheel. prone to shysterism. 9780307359902 (also of me). And it has some excellent emails from my friend Within minutes, he had to pull over because he could no Al, who is extremely smart. You will learn stuff you never longer see to drive. knew, maybe even be enlightened. (It’s possible.) If you “I was the boy in the movie,” Paddie whispered. “I Ghost sisters think that because it is a book by a frog, it has nothing for was the boy in the movie.” NOW LIVING IN PENNSYLVANIA, CLAIRE MULLIGAN WAS you, you are wrong. Frogs are the best. Even Al thinks so. It raised in B.C. and graduated from UBC in 1995. Her second talks about Schubert and baseball and green onion pancakes. work of historical fiction, The Dark (Random $32.95) re- With ponzu sauce! And there are heaps of tips on how to calls the Fox Sisters—Maggie, Katie and Leah—who pur- manage the humans in your life.” 978-1897141496

pects someone is following her. In private life, a man writes one-sided letters to his beloved Skin & home as their relationship ruptures. Another man ponders the positions of The Green and Purple Skin of the World predator and prey with a cougar in a West by paulo da costa (Freehand $21.95) Coast forest. A son tries to convince his aging mother to accept a new IKEA ta- e are fragile creatures, ble. A passionate soccer fan shares Ben Nuttall-Smith was born on safari in Tanganyika Territory (now Tanzania) in 1933. When his father was Wbreakable but repair- his near-religious fervor with his reportedly killed in North Africa, his mother remarried young boy. able. Often at home we ex- and his name was changed to Benoit Boucher. In 1982, “If we desire effective change in the de- Nuttall-Smith found his father was still alive and well in England and reclaimed his family name. perience our first structive ways we relate to each other as com- betrayals, or first munities and nations,” says da costa, “if we desire to change the destructive Following this episode, about 25 years ago, Ben Nuttall- invisibilities. ways we relate to the larger web Smith’s marriage disintegrated, his teaching career fell apart paulo da costa’s of life on the planet and cos- and, suffering from PTSD, he moved to a ‘Handyman’s fiction collection, The mos, we must first under- Delight’ on the Sunshine Coast. As part of the healing proc- Green and Purple Skin stand how we begin to fail ess, he began writing. He burned stacks and stacks of bitter of the World, consequently each other in the realm of scribbles while saving many of the better parts. Seventeen looks at what drives fami- the personal and of fam- years of writing and rewriting and several edits later, the lies apart and what forces ily life.” publisher/writer Manolis agreed to publish the novel. “The personal is them back together. Quite likely B.C.’s In Secrets Kept / Secrets Told, the protagonist travels to political is a motto “It is often within the that has always only Angolan-born author, French Canada where he encounters bullying. At 17, he home where we first learn how captivated me” paulo da costa was raised in joins the Navy. Later he is nearly killed while participating not to care,” he says, “and to PAULO DA COSTA Vale de Cambra, Portugal and ar- in the 1960s civil rights movement in the southern U.S. ignore the harm we inflict on oth- rived in Canada in 1989. Having “Desperate to find acceptance and love,” writes psychia- ers. We carry on later, failing to won Best First Book, Canada & Car- trist and reviewer William Hay, “he seeks the spiritual- understand and protect the most ibbean Region of the Commonwealth ity of a Catholic teaching order and discovers the joys of vulnerable who will cross our paths, Writers Prize 2003, the City of Calgary teaching music and drama. After thirteen years of mixed and often, we will abuse our cir- W.O. Mitchell Book Prize in 2002 and the joy and frustration, he leaves the order and marries… cumstantial power to fulfill Canongate Prize for Short-Fiction in 2001, da costa “For all those who have known the horrors of residential personal wants at another be- moved to B.C. in 2003 and schools, persecution for difference, the shame of abuse, ing’s expense.” now lives on Vancouver Is- stigma and injustice, or who just want to read a wonderful In the collection, a nine- land. His stories have been biographical novel of an extraordinary man in extraordinary BC year-old, certain she’s adopted, runs away from home translated into Italian, Chinese, BOOKWORLD times, I would urge you to read Secrets Kept / Secrets Told.” and tells her stuffed rabbit, Carrot, that it’s not as easy Spanish, Serbian, Slovenian STAFF PICK 9781926763187 to run away as she thought, especially when she sus- and Portuguese. 978-1-55481-139-7

32 BC BOOKWORLD SUMMER 2013 BC FICTIO N BC BOOKWORLD Mother-daughter drama STAFF PICK WHEN AN IMPULSIVE MOTHER LEAVES the family to study crop circles in the English countryside, her half- 18 stories Asian, precocious daughter Grace, nicknamed Gray, must make sense of an unusual mother-daughter bond on the road in the debut novel of Calgary-born Corinna Chong of Kelowna, Corinna Chong South of Elfrida by Holley Rubinsky (Brindle & Glass $19.95) Belinda’s Rings (NeWest 19.95). More inclined towards marine biology than maternity, Gray copes with her mother’s mid-life crisis by learning to keep F THERE’S A BEST SHORT-STORY-OF-THE- house for her peculiar brother Squid and their rapidly-ailing year competition, we think Holley stepfather—a story that percolates with humour ought to submit either the and kindness. 978-1-927063-27-0 bill bissett has Rubinsky published over title story for South of Elfrida, about a 70 books I 600 strands of fiction birdwatching field trip in Arizona, or ‘Desert FOR HIS SECOND WORK OF FICTION, MICHAEL Dreams,’ in which Nina rents a seventeen-foot Hetherington wrote fragments of fiction every day for Meditation on love Easy Loader from U-Haul to rescue Miriam from 2500 days, between 1995 and 2002, selecting 600 strands EVER-FERTILE BILL BISSETT HAS RETURNED FOR HIS for The Archive Carpet (Passfield $19.95). Some strands second extended “novel-poem”, hungree throat (Talon the nursing home because her mother “just wants consist of only one sentence, making for a bizarre amalgam, $17.95), in which he recounts the ten-year relationship of to look at the ocean one last time.” neither poetry nor novel. The book starts with a prologue of two men as a meditation on love. Whereas one man is bold Most of Rubinsky’s eighteen stories feature mature 52 sentences followed by three parts divided into sections. and unafraid, the other is burdened by terrible memories and women in America’s mid-west, usually estranged from, or Fanciful titles abound, such as “The Calculus of the Gar- unable to trust. bissett is now beyond seventy books—and missing, men. Each sentence is carefully constructed. den’s Edge” and “A Burbling Farther not counting… 9780889227453 Oddly, many of the early stories include animals—tur- Down in the Pit.” 978-0-9879618-1-5 tles, emus, birds, a cat, a poodle, a rooster, a rat. It’s those Gang warfare two aforementioned longer stories that generate a memora- Guitar drama JOEL MARK HARRIS GRADUATED FROM LANGARA’S ble resonance; either might have served as a better opener. SET IN MONTREAL, FORMER Journalism School in 2007. He wrote and co-produced the The protagonist, Jean’s, fascination with a self-assured but Vancouverite Ann Ireland’s feature-length film Neutral Territory with Josias narcissistic “hawk man” who leads a gaggle of female bird fourth novel, The Blue Guitar Tschanz (co-producer, director, actor). The filming was watchers through desolate Cochise County is ultimately Ann Ireland (Dundurn $19.99) takes the reader done at Tschanz’s parents’ ranch in Burns Lake. Harris’ self- supplanted by her loyalty to her bird-eating cat in ‘South of behind the scenes of an international classical guitar compe- published novel is A Thousand Bayonets (iUniverse $18.95) Elfrida.’ As in an Alice Munro story, the reader goes, tition in Montreal as a former protégé attempts a comeback about a journalist who, upon returning from Afghanistan to “Yes, this is how life really is.” Fulfilling because it is un- after suffereing an emotional breakdown. 978-1459705869 Canada, discovers a gang war in his city. 978-1-4620-3268-6 predictable. Heavy mental Short stories Saskatchewan-raised C.P. Boyko of Victoria has had work IN 2012, P.W. BRIDGMAN (A PEN NAME) HAD HIS SHORT STORY nominated for the Journey Prize four times (more than any ‘Cake, Bang and Elm’ awarded third prize in the Leonard A. other writer except David Bergen). His first collection Koval Memorial International Fiction Competition and it of stories, Blackouts (McClelland & Stewart, 2008), which was therefore included in the Irish anthology, Gem Street, includes his 2007 Journey Prize-winning story entitled published by Labello Press of Clonmel, Co. Tipperary. “OZY,” has been followed by Psychology and Other Sto- Bridgman has now released his first short story collection, ries (Biblioasis $19.95), about mental illness and mental Standing at an Angle to My Age (Libros Libertad $20). health, and the people who try and tell the two apart. Shrinks Promo material states, “While he is convinced that the short and therapists share the same neuroses as the patients they story is both the preeminent literary prose form and his true attempt to diagnose, often disastrously. It was shortlisted métier, when pressed Mr. Bridgman will also quietly admit HOLLEY RUBINSKY: “For six winters I pulled a for this year’s Ethel Wilson Fiction Prize. 978-1-92684-550-0 to having begun work on a novel.” 978-1-926763-25-5 travel trailer, my home away from home, and spent time mostly in California and Arizona. If there were other women traveling alone, I didn't meet them. The eighteen stories in South Fleming first of Elfrida reflect life on the road.” ANNE FLEMING’S GAY DWARVES OF Rubinsky lives in Kaslo, the publisher is on Vancouver America (Pedlar Press $21) was Island and the cover is garish orange, so don’t hold your breath for a Giller nomination; but she’s the real deal for shortlisted for the 2013 Ethel Wilson Fic- anyone who enjoys sophisticated storytelling. tion Prize. It’s the second time Fleming For several years Rubinsky was host of The Writers’ has been nominated for the award and Show, about writing and publishing, produced by Kootenay probably the first time any book published Coop Radio CJLY in Nelson. 978-1-927366-05-9 from Newfoundland has made one of the shortlists. Fleming is a UBC creative writ- Also Received ing professor and ukulele player, as • Unholy Rites: A Danuta Dranchuk Mystery (Touchwood $14.95) by Kay Stewart & Chris Bullock 978-1-927129-83-8 well as a hockey player. Coincidentally, • The Third Riel Conspiracy (Touchwood $14.95) ’s latest release by Stephen Legault 978-1-927129-85-2 Jan Zwicky • Dream With Little Angels (Kensington $16.95) The Book of Frog is from the same press by Michael Hiebert 978-0-7582-8575-1 • Jazz With Ella (Libros Libertad $23.00) in St. John’s. 978-1-897141-46-5 by Jan DeGrass 978-1-926763-24-8 • The Modern World (Oberon $19.95) by Cassie Beecham 978-0-7780-1394-5 • A Crowbar In the Buddhist Garden (Thistledown $18.95) by Stephen Reid 978-1-927068-03-8 • The Dodgem Derby: A Georgia Serpentine Mystery Anne Fleming (New Orphic Pub. $15) by Jill Mandrake 978-1-894842-21-1 • Twilight is Not Good for Maidens (Dundurn $17.99) by Lou Allin 978-1459706019

33 BC BOOKWORLD SUMMER 2013 INDIES

ANY OF THE BEST Fidel Castro & Fred Brown books from British Lillooet magazine publisher Van Andruss has completed his long-in-process biogra- Columbia nowa- M phy of Fred Brown who led two pio- days are self-published. These neering settlements in B.C. and taught at books seldom receive media cov- SFU. In A Compass and a Chart: The Life of Fred Brown, Philosopher and erage; they are rarely considered Mountaineer (Lived Experience Press), for literary awards. Here are just Andruss, as a self-avowed protégé who met Brown in 1967, has documented Brown’s eight titles of undeniable merit; see peripatetic journey as a leftist thinker, while the QUICKIES section on page 3 often skipping over Brown’s troubled private life. for more. The 391-page tribute includes the fasci- Escaping a marriage nating story of how Fidel Castro hired You gotta love a book on divorce that opens Brown to serve as the head of the Univer- with a Shakespeare line, “Go to your bosom; sity of Havana philosophy department in knock there, and ask your heart what it doth the early 1960s even though Brown could know.” Even though Lisa Thomson’s speak only rudimentary Spanish. While liv- wise and prudent The Great Escape: A ing in Havana not long after the Cuban Revo- Girl’s Guide to Leaving a Marriage lution, Brown’s daughter Satya met Castro Lisa Thomson (Blossom $14.95) is being marketed towards in a restaurant. Along with Castro’s cohorts women, some of her good counsel—such as and Satya’s Canadian girl friend Bella how to deal with anger—works for any sane mainly people tied to the British Isles by 1946-1982 (Moody’s Lookout $39.95), Scup, they all shared a convivial meal at person. It’s about leaving a marriage respon- their correspondence with relatives, and delivers drawings by some of the best car- the girls’ apartment whereupon Castro, upon sibly, not as a victim, but instead “choosing their journeys back and forth. The entries toonists from the period 1946-1982. Many learning Satya’s father was a philosopher, joy.” A sublime, smart and useful book. vary in length from a few lines to several cartoons address issues prevalent today whimsically decided to invite Fred Brown— Contact: www.lisathomsonlive.com; 978-0-9878378-0-6 pages and conclude with a list of sources. such as aboriginal land disputes, big oil in someone he had never met—to come to the This book is an expanded version of the Alberta and the debate on the University of Havana Back to the land original 2010 edition. decriminalization of marijuana. to teach. At the time 978-0-9680016-6-0 Already into its second printing, Gumboot Contact: [email protected]; 978-0-9573753-0-7 Brown was ma- Girls: Adventure, Love & Survival on The rise of hockey rooned in a teaching British Columbia’s North Coast (Muskeg Human progress The remarkably diligent hockey historian job at Telegraph Press) tells the stories of 34 women, through A former president of both Science World Craig H. Bowlsby cites the diary of Creek in northern their own eyes, as they move from their and the Vancouver Institute, physicist Reverend in Janu- B.C. John Sheepshanks Van Andruss comfortable city-dwelling surroundings to John Madden received his D.Phil from ary of 1862 as the first recorded reference Fred Brown and the north coast of B.C. in the 1970s as part Oxford as a Rhodes scholar. He is co-author to hockey being played in British Colum- his wife Phyll were subsequently given a of the “back-to-the-land” counter-cultural of a futurist, B.C.-published Canadian bia, at New Westminster following a freeze- house in the New Vedado district of Havana movement. Edited by Lou Allison and bestseller Gutenberg Two – The New Elec- up of the Fraser River. Bowlsby has now in 1963. Brown eventually delivered a few compiled by Jane Wilde. 978-0-9877614-2-2 tronics and Social Change (Press followed his unparalleled, illus- lectures in October of 1964 but was hospi- Porcepic 1979) with Alphonse trated 381-page reference work on talized when he had a black out. Imperial Vancouver Island Oimet, Dave Godfrey and ice hockey in British Columbia, The Cubans financed Fred Brown’s jour- John Bosher’s earliest ancestor on Van- Doug Parkhill. It received a from 1895 to 1911, The Knights of ney to Prague in 1964 where he underwent couver Island was Sarah Taylor fourth printing in 1985. Now Mad- Winter (2006) with an equally ad- treatment for alcoholism. He didn’t return Marsden (1833-1916) who arrived from den has self-published an overview mirable, 388-page volume, Empire to Havana until 1965. Shortly thereafter, Liverpool on a bride ship. Born in North of human progress, The Davey of Hockey: The Rise and Fall of the Browns returned to Canada; Satya be- John Madden Saanich, Bosher studied at the Sorbonne and Dialogues: An Exploration of the the Pacific Coast Hockey Asso- came a doctor in Cuba and married a fellow Cuban doctor. gained his Ph.D in history from London Uni- Scientific Foundations of Hu- ciation, 1911-1926 (Knights of ✍ versity. In retirement he has spent twelve man Culture (STC Enterprises Winter $25). It features Cyclone years writing 769 biographies for his 839- $24.95). 978-0-9917675-1-9 Taylor, Frank and Lester IN AN IDEAL WORLD, WE WOULD HAVE AN page Imperial Vancouver Island: Who Was Patrick, Nels Stewart annual prize for best self-published book Who 1850-1950 (Book Repository). It’s Political cartoons and others. The PCHA created from B.C. There are literally hundreds of an alphabetical inventory of early Vancou- Charles and Cynthia Hou’s the first American teams to com- very worthwhile B.C. books entering the ver Island residents from the British Isles, third volume in a series, Great pete for the Stanley Cup. world this way—under the radar, fueled by Cyclone Taylor British India, and other parts of the Empire; Canadian Political Cartoons 978-0-9691705-6-3 belief… A CIA agent’s memoir of a doomed son

raham E. Fuller’s Three his family. The tale chronicles a poignant and tional Intelligence Council at CIA, with overall Truths and a Lie: A tumultuous quest to grasp the meaning of responsibility for all national level strategic fore- Memoir (Create Space) is a Luke’s life—and death—against a broad inter- casting. memoir about Luke, a Korean national backdrop from Afghanistan to Latin In 1988 Mr. Fuller left government and joined Gadoptee who comes to an American family at America. It explores the mysteries of adop- the RAND Corporation where he was a senior age one and who gradually loses his way— tion, identity, addiction—and grace.” political scientist for 12 years. His research to die from crack cocaine at age 21. It is also Graham E. Fuller is an independent writer, focused primarily on the Middle East, Central a story of his adoptive father, a CIA officer, analyst, lecturer on Muslim world affairs and Asia, South and Southeast Asia, and prob- who offers an unsparing and vivid account adjunct professor of history at Simon Fraser lems of ethnicity and religion in politics. His of his own efforts—wise, misguided, pas- University in Vancouver. studies for RAND included a provocative 1991 sionate, naïve, creative, ultimately unsuc- He received his BA and MA at Harvard Uni- study on the geopolitical implications of the cessful—to save his son. versity in Russian and Middle Eastern studies. Palestinian “Intifada;” a series of studies on According to publicity materials, “Luke is He served 20 years as an operations officer Islamic fundamentalism in Turkey, Sudan, Af- warm, likeable, funny, quick to win friends— in the CIA, mostly in the Muslim world, working ghanistan, Pakistan and Algeria; the and a skilled deceiver, able to impress others in Germany, Turkey, Lebanon, Saudi Arabia, survivability of Iraq; the “New Geopolitics of with a seeming maturity and urbanity. But the North Yemen, Afghanistan, and Hong Kong. In Central Asia” after the fall of the USSR; and image he works to create for himself is in- 1982 he was appointed the national intelligence problems of democratization and Islam. creasingly belied by the darker realities of officer for Near East and South Asia at the Fuller moved to BC in 2004 and lives in his life and the black hole he creates around CIA, and in 1986 vice-chairman of the Na- Squamish. 978-1479274314

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36 BC BOOKWORLD SUMMER 2013 LETTERS

emony that evening. The Hamatsa is a he- Day break reditary ceremony of the Kw’akwakawakw BC BOOKWORLD ARRIVED TODAY AND, AS (formerly known as Kwaguitl) people of usual, I immediately dove in. I was surprised northeastern Vancouver Island. They are our to find my name mentioned in the lengthy traditional enemies. piece on David Day. He says we had a fall- Such a depiction is offensive to our peo- ing out but I like particulars, they somehow ple and I’m sure just as much so to the reveal more of the truth. Kw’akwakawakw to whom the ceremony Day’s poetry title, The Cowichan, was belongs. It’s troubling to see the book rec- one of the first four Oolichan books I printed ommended by these sites as suitable for stu- myself in the print shop at the old dents in grade 5 and up. The misleading Malaspina College campus, including content regarding aboriginal people has been Robert Kroetsch’s The Stone Hammer Po- a bane to us for a very long time. I apologize ems. for dumping this all in your lap, but your When it came time to bind the books the website is the only one I’ve found that makes college lacked the equipment to do the job. provision for feedback. I’m writing this in Robin suggested I take the books to Morriss the spirit of setting the record straight. Printing in Victoria, especially since I wanted Victor Guerin to do a limited, hardcover edition of Musqueam First Nation Kroetsch’s book to commemorate the launch [We have posted this letter on the Isabel of Oolichan as a new literary press on the Reekie entry for abcbookworld. This entry west coast. Robin told me Morriss did qual- does not contain any of the misleading in- ity work, something of an understatement I Adolf Hungry Wolf and Cashius Klay Hungry Wolf in 2011 at Paro Pass, formation cited above. –Ed.] was to learn over the next twenty years. south of Cusco, at over 5,000 meters elevation, after participating in sacred rituals with alpaca herders. “These full-blooded Quechua people I delivered the pages to Morriss and then are descendants of the Incas,” he says, “and they look and live a lot like Non-stop reader sat back and waited for the job to be com- Blackfeet of a century ago. No treaties, no government assistance, just I JUST WANT TO TELL YOU HOW MUCH I pleted. Day was impatient. He called me a tough and totally sincere and committed people. ‘Cash’ and I dress in their style out of respect when we’re with them. They really like that.” appreciate and enjoy B.C. BookWorld. I have couple of times to see if his book was ready. Hungry Wolf supports their school—one of the highest in the world— read it since the first issue. Before postage When I heard from someone at Morriss’s with food utensils, school supplies and books taken up with packhorses. became an expense, I used to send all the that the books were bound, I headed to Vic- issues to my brother in the U.K. who was toria to pick up Oolichan’s first publica- new instrumental-only tune. The Riddle clas- originally from here. tions. I was shown into Dick Morriss’s Kerosene, “Cash” sic was a big hit on the charts in the early I started collecting early B.C. books in office where I met Dick for the first time. ’60s. The Riddle song is totally different with 1950 when items that are worth $1000 now He greeted me rather oddly and asked if this & iphones no resemblance to the other classic done by could be had for $5 from great Toronto book- were some kind of joke. Who was I really? THANKS FOR MENTIONING MY NEW BOOK, many, including Manhattan Transfer. stores such as Britnell’s. I later spent two He then told me Ron Smith had just been in Vintage Cubano [BCBW Spring]. Although John H. Oliver years as president of the Victoria Historical and picked up the books. I assured him I was it’s gotten a couple of in-depth reviews in Agassiz Society. Just turning ninety now. Items Ron Smith and asked him to describe the U.S. publications, yours is the only men- [He is absolutely right about the difference found in B.C. BookWorld are of great inter- Ron Smith he claimed to have just met. Well, tion of my book in Canada. My four-vol- between the two songs. Each is explained in est and nowhere else does one see the prod- the imposter he described was ume “life’s work,” The Blackfoot Papers, the book. There are several pages around ucts of our many small presses reviewed David Day. He had made off with every copy also got no mention in Canada except by the TV show’s creation and why that song and advertised. Thanks. of his own book and left the others behind. B.C. BookWorld, in spite of being the larg- was commissioned instead of using Bobby Rex Brown Dick jumped into his car and headed to est volume ever produced about a single Troup’s original. There’s an extended piece Victoria Bruce Hutchinson’s house where he had native tribe in the world. on Troup and about his (and his wife’s) writ- heard David Day was staying. I followed in The Blackfoot Papers has now been taken ing of the song that was made famous by my car. Dick burst through the front door over by the school board of the Blackfeet Nat King Cole. There’s also a sidebar Good Godwin tribe to help educate future generations. The and confronted Day who was still unload- around the question: “What are the origi- BARRY GOUGH IS CERTAINLY NOT THE FIRST ing cartons of books into the house. Dick tribe has paid off my debt to Friesen print- nal words of Get Your Kicks on Route 66?” to plead the case for Juan de Fuca being a was livid, understandably so; I thought he ers and now owns the rights. — Rick Antonson] real person who actually entered the strait was going to punch Day out on the spot I’m content as can be in my old age. I which bears his name [BCBW Spring]. but Dick restrained himself. We packed up still have my kerosene lamps, but now also George Godwin, polymath writer and his- the books and took them back to the shop. rely on two solar panels to charge my ibook torian, closely argued at length the same A short time later I sold all copies of The and iphone. I’m still totally committed to points as Gough in his Vancouver, A Life Cowichan to Day. In my view, what he had “simple living in harmony with nature.” (New York: Appleton, 1931, pp. 60-62). I done was theft, but what pissed me off even Meanwhile our family press, Good was astonished to find no reference to more was that Day thought the whole mat- Medicine Books, is entering its 44th year Godwin in Gough’s narrative or even men- ter was a great joke. He meant no harm, he with a new “apprentice director,” twelve- tion of him in Mr. Gough’s index. (“Ingrati- told me. I suspect that I would never have year old Cashius Klay Hungry Wolf. He is tude, thou marble-hearted fiend!”) I am sure seen a bound copy of Day’s book had Dick the oldest of my ten grandchildren. He loves that Mr. Gough ought to have known of not acted as quickly as he did. reading books and already has a couple of this book because I brought it to his atten- But there is another more troubling part titles in the works. tion five years ago at a cocktail party in Rick Antonson of this “falling out.” Myrtle Bergren, au- As an enrolled member of the Blood tribe Broadmead. thor of Tough Timber, an important history in Alberta, he won’t have to put up with the Robert Thomson, Godwin Books of logging in the Cowichan Valley, confronted racist crap I’ve endured from various critics Victoria me some time later, after the release of Day’s and self-styled “intellectuals” and frustrated Paddle twaddle would-be writers over the years. book, and asked me if I understood what I HAIL FROM THE MUSQUEAM FIRST NATION. plagiarism was. I answered yes and she re- Adolf Hungry Wolf As a child I received a book by Isabel M. Air India lessons Skookumchuck plied that, as a publisher, I should know Reekie entitled Red Paddles about two I AM THANKFUL TO B.C. BOOKWORLD FOR what I was publishing. I said I did. She then young boys in Burrard Inlet at the time of giving coverage to my book, Fighting Ha- informed me that much of Day’s The Roots of Route 66 the 1886 Vancouver fire. tred With Love. The review received a tre- Cowichan was text taken directly from her IN YOUR ARTICLE ON RICK ANTONSON’S One of our ancestral village sites, situ- mendous amount of attention from various book and broken into lines. She showed me book Route 66 Still Kicks: Driving Ameri- ated in present day Stanley Park, is described parts of B.C. I am now looking for a pub- a couple of passages and I was, to say the ca’s Main Street [Winter], I sense by the in the book as the home village of the abo- lisher for my forthcoming book, Canada’s least, shocked. I confronted Day about this writing of the piece there may not be an riginal boy in the story. 9/11: Lessons from the Air India Bombings, and he had no response. awareness that the Route 66 theme for the I’ve looked at various websites where to situate the Air India tragedy in a broader Unfortunately Myrtle was killed in a TV series, by Nelson Riddle, has no rela- the book is up for sale and they describe it geo-political context. It will look into rea- car accident a short time later and nothing tion to the jazz classic Route 66 which does as having “historically satisfying content.” sons that led to the worst terrorist attack in ever came of her charge. have the line “Get your kicks on Route 66.” This is not so; one of the events de- the history of aviation prior to 9/11. Ron Smith The TV series considered using the vocal of scribed involves the boy arriving home to Gurpreet Singh Lantzville Route 66, but were convinced to create a fresh, find his family is holding a Hamatsa cer- Vancouver

37 BC BOOKWORLD SUMMER 2013 LETTERS The good ferry THANKS VERY MUCH FOR THE SUPER LOVELY spread on Contingency Plan in B.C. BookWorld [Winter]. Your publication greeted me on the ferry back in ‘06 when I moved from Ontario, and it’s an honour to be in its pages. Your continuing support of PHOTO

B.C. authors is truly appreciated.

Lou Allin SAWCHUK Andrea

Sooke Geiger LAURA Langley shares Prizes, schmizes WE NEED YOU IN LANGLEY CITY! I’M A THE SUPPORT AND ADVICE I’VE RECEIVED member of the Langley Writers’ Guild and from B.C. BookWorld has meant every bit will share my copy of B.C. BookWorld at as much to me as the two prizes my book Self-Publish.ca Suspense / Thrillers our meetings. It’s terrific that you are still has received. In fact, I think of the support publishing after all these years. BC BookWorld gives us all as a prize in its BY LIN WEICH Sandra Hawkes own right. Thanks so much for all you do Langley for all of us. Andrea Geiger Crumb’s bread Vancouver Visit our website to find out all I WAS SURPRISED TO SEE A REPRODUCTION you need to know about of an illustration created by the famous Just Desserts self-publishing Robert Crumb in B.C. BookWorld. The JUST WANTED TO THANK YOU FOR “Keep on Truckin’” phrase is also very well The Vancouver Desktop B.C. BookWorld’s inclusion of the article known to those of us who are fans of the about my self-published novel The Desserts Publishing Centre 978-1-77097-385-5 pb 978-1-77097-388-6 pb 978-1-77097-386-2 eb 978-1-77097-389-3 eb work of Mr. Crumb. I’m puzzled — I don’t of War. It truly was a pleasant surprise to call for a free consultation Strength of an Eagle and believe this image is in the public domain find myself in your pages. It certainly should PATTY OSBORNE, manager Half-Truths, Total Lies and as Mr. Crumb now lives in France with boost sales, at least in B.C. 4360 Raeburn Street are realistic, suspense thrillers his wife Aline, I imagine he can use all the I would like to make clear that the article North Vancouver, B.C. v7g 1k3 set in Northern BC. revenue he gets. I would be interested to is not an excerpt from the novel, but rather Ph 604-929-1725 Available in paperback and hear whether this image is readily available something written by way of a postscript. www.self-publish.ca all e-book formats. or if there has been some dreadful mistake. That said, I certainly appreciate your sup- linweich.com • [email protected] helping self-publishers since 1986 Michael J. Turner port and, as always, look forward to each Victoria and every issue of B.C. BookWorld. [We first wrote to Crumb’s website David Kos and then paid to use it. – Ed.] Saltspring Island 4th EDITION ! Write away, Renée I WAS VERY PLEASED TO RECEIVE MY COPY of B.C. BookWorld and find the lovely interview article you printed regarding my book Living in a Dangerous Climate. As Reading Service for Writers always you do an excellent job of raising awareness of B.C. authors and books. If you are a new writer, or a writer One note of correction. I did go to UBC with a troublesome manuscript, for a while, but none of my degrees were EVENT’s obtained there. I did obtain my Ph.D from Reading Service for Writers the University of Victoria and worked there. may be just what you need. The Bamfield Cookbook I now work independently. Renée Hetherington

photo by Anne Grant $25 – ISBN 978-1-77084-161-1 North Saanich Visit eventmags.com for more information Bamfield Community School Assoc. [email protected] • 250-728-1220 Letters / emails: BC BookWorld, “Bamfield has many gastronomically 3516 W. 13th Ave., Van., BC V6R 2S3 adventurous home cooks and its dinner parties rival Paris.” [email protected] Laura Calder, cookbook author Letters may be edited for clarity & length.

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Eating Bitter Streaking! Who Killed Abraham A Chinese American Saga Haiku Moments The Collected Poems of Gary Botting Lincoln by Paul Serup by Maria Tippett on the Camino: UBERMENSCH by Gary Botting “beautifully France to Finisterre An investigation of North America’s written Subverting Exclusion A richly textured biography of the by Manolis Here collected for the first time are most famous ex-priest’s assertion and deeply by Andrea Geiger lives of Paul and Sonia Ho and the by Harvey Jenkins Poetry that celebrates the imperfect Gary Botting’s hundreds of that the Roman Catholic Church engaging” Japanese immigrant encounters prejudices the family encountered Travel diary of an 800 km walk perfection of the imperfect chaos, published poems, “lyrical, satirical, was behind the assassination of WESTERN as immigrants to the U.S. HISTORICAL with race, caste, and borders in the across northwestern Spain in 2010 energetic and lucid philosophic 380 pages sentimental, sexperimental, abstract, America’s greatest president. QUARTERLY North American West, 1885 to 1928. ISBN 978-1-4535-1690-4 POETRY that is told in poetry and prose. meditations on being human. concrete — with and without feet.” HISTORY ISBN 978-0-9811685-0-0 • $29.95 HISTORY ISBN 9780300169638 • $45 HISTORY $9.99 (Kindle version) & PROSE ISBN 978-0-9917531-0-9 • $19.95 POETRY ISBN 978-1-897430-97-2 • $24.95 POETRY ISBN 978-1-62516-309-7 • $15.95 B.C. BookWorld continues to support independent writers and publishers. We have also launched a new site for B.C. literary awards www.bcbookawards.ca BC BC BOOKLOOK BOOKWORLD AWARDS

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